Earlier this week I was proud to spearhead a bipartisan letter signed by 30 members of the Alaska State Legislature that was sent to our Congressional Delegation asking them to make federal permitting reform a top priority in the 118th Congress.
As Alaskans, we know best how to develop our natural resources in an environmentally responsible way. Unfortunately, much of the current permitting process for our projects takes place at the federal level by bureaucrats thousands of miles away, who often have never even been to Alaska.
With the passage of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) in 2021 came the announcement of numerous infrastructure and energy projects slated for Alaska. In order to ensure these projects get out of the planning stages and into the building stages, we need federal permitting reform that aims to streamline the burdensome process. There is only so much that can be done on a State-level basis.
As the Chair of the Senate Transportation Committee, it is my mission to help improve quality and efficiency in government to deliver greater value for the money spent on capital investments. By streamlining the federal permitting process, we can create a more favorable business environment and attract new investments to Alaska.
The IIJA has brought many infrastructure and energy projects to Alaska. But we are already seeing critical projects experiencing onerous delays because of our nation’s slow and inefficient permitting processes. Not only do these delays undermine the value of taxpayer investments, but they can prevent shovel-ready projects from moving forward.
Environmental reviews alone can take several years—if not a full decade or more—to complete. These inefficiencies increase costs, decrease overall investment, and delay the benefits of modern, more sustainable infrastructure. At the same time, the lengthy federal permitting process discourages private-sector investment by increasing risks for interested companies and their investors.
Our congressional delegation has already been pursuing reform, but our letter adds bipartisan voices of the Alaska Legislature, urging our delegation to continue to make infrastructure project approvals more efficient, coordinated, and predictable for all parties involved. Importantly, these changes should not lower the exceptional environmental standards that Alaska and the rest of the United States currently maintain.
The right kind of permitting reforms should increase transparency and accountability while reducing the duplication of efforts made at the federal, state, and local levels, which are the unfortunate norm of our current system.
Our letter has been signed by 30 members – 23 Republicans, six Democrats, and one independent – representing six Committee Chairs and five Committee Vice-chairs in the State Senate, nine Committee Chairs in the State House, a Speaker of the House, and House Majority and Minority leader. It’s not often that you find agreement from such a broad group of lawmakers representing such geographically diverse regions.
I will continue to work hard to do what I can to make our government more efficient and to get the greatest value out of taxpayer dollars.
~
