Permitting Reform Actions

Author
Mark McManus

Organization
General President, United Association

Brothers and Sisters,

Over the last year, we have seen historic wins for our members: from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, CHIPS And Science Act, and Inflation Reduction Act, to President Biden’s Executive Order requiring PLAs on federal projects, and from the expansion of Davis-Bacon Prevailing Wage to the strengthening of our registered apprenticeship system. These wins were made possible because the UA actively worked with elected officials on both sides of the aisle and with the Biden-Harris Administration to fight for our membership. And these wins mean the United Association will continue to grow our membership and our market share for generations to come.

But the work is not done here.

Our highest priority now is to make sure we update and modernize our outdated and redundant permitting process for energy projects. We see it all too often: projects get stuck in the limbo of the permitting process as different fringe activists file lawsuit after lawsuit, or various government agencies have to perform analysis after analysis before shovels can go in the ground. Common-sense permitting reform legislation will enable us to truly unlock the full potential of American infrastructure.

Thankfully, both parties in Congress agree that permitting reform is long overdue. We have engaged with our allies on the Hill to educate them on our priorities when it comes to the permitting process, and we have had constant conversations with the White House to make sure they understand why permitting reform is essential.

As a result, President Biden has taken executive actions to speed up the permitting process. In Alaska, President Biden approved permits for the Willow Project and the Alaska LNG project. Just this week, the Biden-Harris Administration approved a critical permit for the Mountain Valley Pipeline, bringing that project one step closer to completion. 

And last week, the Biden-Harris Administration made it clear that they listened to our priorities on bipartisan permitting reform. The White House released their own set of permitting reform priorities to guide discussions on this issue with Congress. You can read the full list of priorities at the link here, but here are some critical points:

• Accelerating energy project permitting on federal lands
• Deploying hydrogen and carbon dioxide infrastructure
• Improving permitting efficiency through programmatic reviews with a predictable timetable
• Establishing long-term programmatic reviews so that the analysis required can be used for five years
• Cutting duplicative and burdensome reviews

Brothers and Sisters, I want to be crystal clear: we have won some tremendous victories since President Biden took office. The historic levels of infrastructure funding are a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to cement our status as the preeminent building trades union and to grow our ranks and our market share. Permitting reform provides us with another opportunity to deliver another massive victory for our membership.

Rest assured, we will not stop fighting until we deliver meaningful and bipartisan permitting reform.

Fraternally,

Mark McManus