Congressional Correspondence

APGA, with other trade associations representing oil and natural gas companies along the energy value chain, penned a letter to Congressmen Sam Graves (R-Mo.), who serves as ranking member on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and Rick Crawford (R-Ark.), who is the ranking member of that committee’s Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials. This letter thanked them for their leadership in putting forward a legislative proposal intended to spur economic recovery and growth by modernizing the infrastructure permitting process to reduce unnecessary bureaucratic delays and still provide for adequate environmental review.

Congressmen Graves and Crawford’s proposal would allow pipelines to be built in a timely manner, which is one way to put Americans to work. In particular, their plan would modernize the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) ensuring certainty, both for the federal agencies responsible for implementing that law, as well as to the entities, who must comply. As many APGA members know, either from their own projects or from transmission pipelines they are hoping to get supply from, in recent years, federal reviews of proposed infrastructure projects have sometimes taken five or more years to complete. Whether it is roads, bridges, or pipelines, America benefits from an efficient, clear, and predictable permitting process. Hopefully, in addition to thanking Congressmen Graves and Crawford, the letter submitted also encourages their peers to act and modernize the current infrastructure permitting process, ensuring pipelines can be built in a timely manner, with a thorough environmental review.