SCR 20

As Adopted by the Senate
136th General Assembly
    Regular Session  S. C. R. No. 20
       2025-2026
  Senator Wilkin
Cosponsors: Senators Brenner, Chavez, Cirino, Gavarone, Johnson, Landis, Patton,
  Reineke, Romanchuk, Schaffer, Timken
  A CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
  To urge Congress to enact reforms to federal permitting  1
  policies to accelerate deployment of new energy  2
  infrastructure.  3
BE IT RESOLVED BY THE SENATE OF THE STATE OF OHIO (THE HOUSE OF
REPRESENTATIVES CONCURRING):
    WHEREAS, Ohio recognizes that abundant, resilient, and  4
diversified domestic energy production in the United States  5
enhances American national security, economic competitiveness,  6
and energy independence; and  7
    WHEREAS, The excessively complex federal permitting and  8
environmental review processes that have built up around  9
America's environmental laws, including the National  10
Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the Endangered Species Act  11
(ESA), the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA), Clean  12
Water Act (CWA), and dozens of other federal requirements, have  13
grown to be so cumbersome that they often unnecessarily slow or  14
prevent the construction of essential new energy infrastructure  15
and therefore discourage domestic energy production without  16
advancing the laudable goals of these laws; and  17
    WHEREAS, Energy is produced in the United States at a much  18
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As Adopted by the Senate
higher environmental standard than is typically the case in the  19
countries from which energy is imported, so prevention of  20
domestic energy production undermines the goals of those very  21
same environmental laws; and  22
      WHEREAS, Delays caused by permitting inefficiencies inhibit  23
the building of all of the essential components of a low-cost,  24
reliable, and modern energy infrastructure that is needed to  25
support economic competitiveness, to enhance reliability and  26
prevent blackouts, to lower costs for consumers and businesses,  27
and to achieve many of the goals of America's environmental  28
laws; and  29
      WHEREAS, After more than a decade of flat electricity  30
demand, demand for electricity in the United States is projected  31
to dramatically increase in the coming decades, requiring major  32
increases in domestic energy production and a more than doubling  33
of the domestic electricity transmission grid capacity; and  34
      WHEREAS, Regulatory barriers today mean that more than two  35
thousand gigawatts of energy production and storage, more than  36
the entire current American electricity capacity combined, are  37
stuck in electricity interconnection queues and the average  38
amount of time to interconnect new energy resources has nearly  39
doubled from about two years to nearly four years; and  40
      WHEREAS, The average time it takes to process an  41
environmental impact statement under the National Environmental  42
Policy Act (NEPA) for major infrastructure projects has risen to  43
an excessive length of four and one-half years; and  44
      WHEREAS, The United States is highly reliant on China and  45
other countries that do not share our interests to mine and  46
process critical minerals, with demand for some of these  47
minerals potentially growing by more than forty times by 2040;  48
and  49
S. C. R. No. 20  Page 3
As Adopted by the Senate
      WHEREAS, Other developed nations that share our goals to  50
protect the environment while producing abundant energy  51
resources, such as Canada and Australia, have shown that they  52
can permit new mines within two to three years instead of nearly  53
ten years, as is often the case in the United States; and  54
      WHEREAS, Both linear infrastructure, such as pipelines and  55
transmission lines, as well as energy generation infrastructure  56
all face extraordinary and indefensible delays due to  57
overlitigation, inappropriate blocking of nationally important  58
projects by unrepresentative and often radical groups that hold  59
those projects hostage, and excessive use of our court system to  60
hamstring worthy projects; and  61
      WHEREAS, Major delays in projects caused by inefficient  62
permitting or overlitigation can dramatically increase costs and  63
make projects less viable, costing consumers, businesses, and  64
taxpayers money and making our energy system less reliable; and  65
      WHEREAS, Unnecessary permitting and regulatory delays also  66
increase American dependence on energy produced by foreign  67
dictators and authoritarian regimes; and  68
      WHEREAS, Unnecessary permitting delays limit investments  69
made in modernizing our nation's infrastructure that would  70
result in a more efficient energy system with reduced emissions  71
and environmental impact; and  72
      WHEREAS, Overlapping federal permitting requirements lack  73
the flexibility to allow for efforts that reflect the spirit and  74
intent of traditional environmental laws by protecting human  75
health and the environment instead of procedural compliance with  76
decades-old regulation; and  77
      WHEREAS, Failure to reform federal permitting laws is  78
already resulting in fewer jobs, reduced security, and higher  79
prices for Americans without providing additional benefits for  80
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the environment; and  81
      WHEREAS, Failing to reform these laws in the coming months  82
will result in even greater limitations on our energy  83
infrastructure, costing even more American jobs while raising  84
costs for consumers and businesses and leaving us vulnerable to  85
unreliability, blackouts, and the resulting severe harm to the  86
American people; now therefore be it  87
      RESOLVED, That we, the members of the 136th General  88
Assembly of the State of Ohio, urge federal legislators to work  89
in good faith to enact legislation that reforms federal  90
permitting and environmental review processes to promote  91
economic and environmental stewardship by expediting the  92
deployment of modern energy infrastructure; and be it further  93
      RESOLVED, That these reforms should enable faster and  94
lower-cost construction of modern energy infrastructure of all  95
kinds, without prejudice, including by considering steps to  96
limit excessive use of judicial processes to slow projects  97
inappropriately, prevent inappropriate usage of the Clean Water  98
Act and other laws to hamstring the lawful building of linear  99
energy infrastructure, such as pipelines and transmission lines,  100
enact reforms to plan, permit, and pay for the necessary build-  101
out of regional and interregional electricity transmission  102
infrastructure to support a more reliable energy grid that  103
lowers costs for consumers and businesses, enable the domestic  104
build-out of the full array of energy technologies essential to  105
a modern system, including all affordable energy resources, and  106
all other traditional and emerging sources needed to meet  107
diverse energy demands; and be it further  108
       RESOLVED, That these legislative reforms should also  109
strive to ensure accountability for federal agencies conducting  110
permitting and environmental review processes, including better  111
data and more aggressive timelines for projects at all levels of  112
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environmental review, whether environmental impact statements,  113
environmental assessments, or categorically excluded projects  114
under NEPA; and be it further  115
       RESOLVED, That these legislative reforms must be  116
accompanied by a redoubling of efforts to streamline federal  117
regulations to support the efficient building of new energy  118
infrastructure; and be it further  119
      RESOLVED, That failure to act to update our federal  120
permitting system to support building new energy infrastructure  121
in a sustainable and effective manner will further harm  122
consumers, workers, and businesses, while making our country  123
less competitive and more vulnerable; and be it further  124
      RESOLVED, That Congress must act with urgency in the coming  125
months to fix our broken permitting system, and we are grateful  126
to the members of Ohio's Congressional Delegation, including  127
both United States Senators, for their support and  128
prioritization of a federal permitting reform deal; and be it  129
further  130
      RESOLVED, That the Clerk of the Senate transmit duly  131
authenticated copies of this resolution to the President Pro  132
Tempore of the United States Senate, the Speaker of the United  133
States House of Representatives, and the members of Ohio's  134
Congressional Delegation.  135