Segrist: Permit Reform Rumbles as US Seeks to ‘Unleash American Energy’

The U.S. is the world’s top LNG exporter and can move natural gas to just about any place on the planet—it just can’t get enough to Massachusetts.

“In Massachusetts, they import LNG,” said Josh Viets, COO of Expand Energy, the nation’s largest producer of natural gas.

Massachusetts accounts for about 87% of the nation’s LNG imports, usually bringing in cargos from Trinidad and Tobago on the spot market, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

“And yet several hundred miles to the south, we’re producing around 5 Bcf/d of natural gas,” said Viets, who spoke on a panel at NAPE.

Thanks to the Jones Act, the U.S. is unable to ship LNG to Massachusetts. However, the cheaper option, sending natural gas to the northeast via pipeline, isn’t an option either, thanks to the red tape that any company faces when attempting such a project.

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The libertarian Cato Institute called Massachusetts’ LNG import terminal “the poster child for irrational energy permitting in the United States.”

Permitting regulations guided by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) from 1970 have evolved into a system heavily criticized in the energy industry for causing delays and legal costs through interminable hearings and bureaucratic delays that add years to the construction process.

In his executive order, “Unleashing American Energy,” President Donald Trump spent an entire section directing the federal government’s administrative departments to streamline the permitting process.

Bloomberg News reported it as the latest attempt by a “U.S. president to address longstanding, bipartisan complaints over the lengthy waits for proposed projects to clear environmental reviews and secure federal authorizations.” The problem, according to analysts, is that the executive order is just an initial step.

The laws covering the permitting process go back decades, and the primary regulations that involve government permitting can only be changed by Congress.

“We would love to have a pipe that would go from Pennsylvania into Massachusetts,” Viets said. “If that happened, if we were able to get the right regulation in place, the right judicial system in place that allowed demand to be created there … we would have the ability to grow into that.”

Congressional moves

The last Congress considered permitting reform. The measure, sponsored by Sen. Joe Manchin (I-W.Va) and Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), advanced out of committee with a bipartisan 15-4 vote.

Manchin and Barrasso introduced the Energy Permitting Reform Act in July 2024, the most serious attempt in the 118th Congress at changing the current system among the more than two dozen reform bills submitted.

Manchin and Barrasso’s bill argued for streamlining judicial review, one of the biggest delaying factors in the permitting process. The allowable time to file challenges was to be shortened from six years to 150 days. For LNG projects, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission would have only 90 days to approve or deny a project after the applicant submitted the final environmental review.

“The bill almost made it across the finish line,” said Mallori Miller, vice president of government relations for the Independent Petroleum Association of America. Miller discussed the topic during a forum at NAPE.

“There was a lot of talk in December, and we were very supportive. It didn’t fix every problem, but it was tailored to the committee’s jurisdiction.”

The House GOP leadership refused to take up the act before finishing the session, and both Houses of Congress blamed each other.

“By taking permitting off the table for this Congress, Speaker (Mike) Johnson and House Republican Leadership have done a disservice to the incoming Trump administration, which has been focused on strengthening our energy security and will now be forced to operate with their hands tied behind their backs when trying to issue permits for all of the types of energy and infrastructure projects our country needs,” Manchin said.

Johnson said that Democrats had delayed negotiations until the end of the term and that the next Republican-controlled Congress would be able to pass a more amenable bill.

“There are a lot of other industries that would like to see permitting reform,” Miller said, adding that passage of a bill will more than likely still require bipartisan support.

“It will continue to be discussed. I’m hopeful that we could put something into some sort of reconciliation package. We’re going to have to see.”

Poster children

The term “poster child” was mentioned more than once when industry insiders discussed projects that encountered difficulty with the federal government’s permitting rules.

“I believe that SPOT should be the poster child for the need for permit reform,” said Enterprise Products Partners Co-CEO Jim Teague.

Enterprise’s ambitious SPOT (seaport oil terminal) project’s permitting took so long that one of its anchor customers backed out. According to analysts, the project’s original projected cost increased from $1.85 billion to about $3 billion.

“It took over five years to get the SPOT license, including almost four years to get the record of decision and a year and a half to get the license to construct,” Teague said during Enterprise’s fourth-quarter earnings call.

“Our initial application was 13,000 pages. I thought that was ridiculous, but by the time we completed the process, our final submission was over 30,000 pages. We addressed over 80,000 comments over two comment periods, predominantly from NGOs [nongovernmental organization].”

One NGO comment was 60 pages long. Teague said his favorite comment was from a person who wanted to know how the company was planning to mow the right of way for the onshore facilities.

“She was concerned that field mice would be protected from hawks.”

Meanwhile, the time for the latest Congress to pass permitting reform is short, Miller said. If the midterm elections follow historical patterns, the Republicans’ slim majorities vanish.  

“I’m not a pessimistic person,” she said. “However, I will say traditionally the midterms swing in the opposite direction of the presidency. If the GOP Congress wants to get things done, they have a very finite amount of time to do it, and, really, it’s right now.”