LETTER: Infrastructure permitting
June 30, 2013 -- WGA Chairman and Vice Chairman send letter to Nancy Sutley, Chair, White House Council on Environmental Quality recommending coordinating federal and state infrastructure permitting
Dear Ms. Sutley:
Western Governors express our appreciation for President Obama’s June 7th Memorandum: Transforming our Nation’s Electric Grid Through Improved Siting, Permitting and Review. We are encouraged by the President’s commitment to make these federal regulatory processes more efficient. We believe the effort of designating and developing Western energy corridors and streamlining permitting, review and siting is improved if states are included as equal partners.
Large infrastructure projects – particularly in the West, where federal, state and private lands are often impacted -- pose complicated and expensive challenges. Project proponents must navigate myriad approvals and jurisdictional authorities, and interact with a variety of communities and landscapes. Streamlined and coordinated federal-state regulatory processes can reduce conflict, uncertainty and financial risk in building such complex projects...