BISMARCK—U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND), member of the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee, issued the following statement after the Biden administration’s White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) released a proposed rule to circumvent bipartisan permitting reforms and expand the scope of environmental reviews.
“The Biden administration and radical environmentalist Democrats are trying to have their cake and eat it, too. Instead of staying within the bounds of the law, they are inserting their climate-obsessed wish list into permitting. The White House says this will ensure a level playing field and speed up timelines, but it will only make it easier than ever for their environmental activist friends to tie up and drag out expensive litigation. I am sick and tired of the double speak and sneaky backdoor attempts to regulate fossil fuels out of existence and add bureaucratic hurdles to everyone who needs a permit.”
The rule will force agencies to consider short- and long-term effects of building a project to combat climate change, expand environmental justice provisions, and explicitly state federal agencies are not bound by their authorizing statutes.