The Manchin Permitting Watch – WSJ

Sen.

Bernie Sanders

was the latest in a Thursday speech. “I rise this morning to express my strong opposition to the so-called side deal that the fossil-fuel industry is pushing to make it easier for them to pollute the environment and destroy our planet,” he said, with all the modesty of socialism. “At a time when climate change is threatening the very existence of our planet, why would anybody be talking about substantially increasing carbon emissions and expanding fossil-fuel production?”

One answer to Mr. Sanders is that even assuming the need for an energy transition, fossil fuels are still needed today and tomorrow. Look around: California is struggling to avoid electricity blackouts, while America’s allies in Europe are contemplating energy rationing this winter. Another answer to Mr. Sanders is that permitting reform could also expedite transit projects or solar farms. There’s a reason the American Wind Energy Association celebrated President Trump’s permitting changes.

Mr. Schumer plans to attach the permitting deal to a government-funding bill, which could make it hard for congressional Bernie bros to block. But a House opposition letter last week, warning about “environmental justice,” gathered 70 signatures. Maybe a secondary goal is to get Mr. Manchin to retrench behind the scenes.

The risk is that in order to claim a permitting victory, he might settle for weak reforms that won’t matter in the real world. There have been suggestions that Mr. Manchin wants to reinforce timetables for government agencies to do permitting reviews. But with what exceptions, and will there be some catchall language to preserve every existing right of activists to bring lawsuits after the fact? Such a deal wouldn’t be worth much, and remember Mr. Manchin purchased it with $433 billion from taxpayers.

It’s hard to know until Mr. Manchin releases the deal’s text, and we hope that language isn’t also super-secret until it’s snuck into a bill at the last minute. The longer this goes on with progressives getting organized, the more we wonder what’s going in the negotiating room. Is permitting reform being sawed and sanded down to a nub? The world is watching, Joe.