It is too hard to build things in America: Can permitting reform begin a new era for energy investment?

Summary

---

Podcast Summary: Energy Gang (Wood Mackenzie)

Episode: "It is too hard to build things in America: Can permitting reform begin a new era for energy investment?"

Date: May 25, 2026
Host: Ed Crooks
Panelists: Dr. Melissa Lott (Microsoft), Rep. Scott Peters (D-CA 50)

---

Episode Overview

This episode explores why building new energy infrastructure in the United States has become so challenging, focusing on permitting reform—the legislative and regulatory changes needed to speed up energy development. Host Ed Crooks is joined by Dr. Melissa Lott and Rep. Scott Peters, who is leading bipartisan efforts in Congress through the Certain Act. Together, they dissect the thickets of process, politics, and policy that have become barriers to clean energy and infrastructure investment, debating practical ways forward and the real-world impact of reform.

---

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Why Is Permitting So Hard?

• Historical evolution:
  • The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), passed in 1970, intended to ensure environmental consequences were considered but now leads to years-long delays due to litigation and overly complex processes ([11:05]).
  • Rep. Peters describes how a "simple planning tool" has become "the most litigated of all environmental statutes" ([08:38]).
• Permitting delays stall progress:
  • Billions of dollars allocated to projects (such as broadband infrastructure) haven’t translated to completed projects, due to lengthy, arduous 14-step reviews ([00:00], [08:38]).
  • “We’ve gotten so tied up in process, we forgot about the product.” — Rep. Scott Peters ([08:38])

2. What Does Permitting Reform Mean?

• Defining the problem:
  • "Permitting reform" is a catch-all: everyone wants to build, but priorities and solutions differ across political lines and industries ([06:07]).
• Key reform bills:
  • Certain Act: Bipartisan bill proposing clear deadlines and protections for permitted projects ([03:12], [13:34]).
  • SPEED Act: Focuses on timelines, limiting litigation, and process clarity ([13:34], [16:53]).
• Major friction points:
  • Backlogs and lack of agency capacity to handle tens of thousands of project applications under the current system.
  • Public input is now duplicated at multiple levels—city, state, federal—causing bottlenecks ([17:41]).
  • Digitalization ("e-permitting") as a bipartisan, already-enacted partial solution ([17:41]).

3. What Are the Consequences of Delay?

• Cost escalation:
  • Every year of delay adds ~10% to project costs, impacting both taxpayers and consumers ([13:02]).
• Irony for climate action:
  • Environmental statutes intended to protect nature are now the primary barriers to clean energy and climate-beneficial projects like offshore wind, solar, hydrogen, and transmission ([08:38]).
• Global competitiveness:
  • US lags far behind Europe, China, and even South America in building high-voltage transmission lines ([28:22]-[28:59]).
  • Utility-scale solar is over twice as expensive to build as in China and notably more than in Europe, due in part to regulatory friction ([56:10]).

4. Politics and Potential for a Grand Bargain

• Certainty has broad support:
  • All major energy sectors—renewables, gas, oil, labor—seek stable, predictable rules for infrastructure ([22:23]).
  • Investor risk perceptions now put US in the same category as Brazil or Vietnam—a major reputational blow ([22:23]).
• Transmission and pipeline policy are inseparable:
  • Democrats unlikely to advance permitting reform without parallel advances for interregional transmission; Republicans seek pipeline relief ([29:19]-[30:40]).
  • Potential methane regulation as a trade-off: writing fugitive methane controls into law to secure environmental votes ([32:08]-[34:11]).

5. Debate: Protecting Process vs. Delivering Results

• Urgency vs. caution:

  • Ed Crooks pushes for more radical change, arguing for speed to capitalize on urgent needs; Melissa Lott urges attention to environmental justice and community consent, arguing that trust and transparency are key to durable infrastructure ([40:28]-[42:41]).

• "Things move forward at the speed of trust." — Dr. Melissa Lott ([42:41])

• Balancing act:

  • Local, state, federal approvals all matter; NEPA reform is necessary but by itself not sufficient. Implementation details (timelines, remedies, decision clarity) dominate successful reform ([19:11], [19:35], [48:07]).

• Rep. Peters’ stance:

  • “I just think we haven’t done big things in 50 years in this country because we’ve got too much process… I don’t know how we’d do an interstate grid system [today].” ([46:08])

6. Will Congress Deliver?

• Are we at a political tipping point?
  • Rep. Peters: “I don’t think we’ve been in a better position to do something big like this since I’ve been here, which is my 14th year now.” ([36:50])
  • Republicans currently control House, Senate, and White House—leverage for a bipartisan compromise ([36:50]).
  • If they can get 7 Democratic senators, the bill could pass the Senate ([36:50]).
• On Trump’s potential support:
  • Peters: “He hasn’t gotten in the way… just name it after him, give him all the credit, and he’ll sign it.” ([38:56])

7. Real-World Outcomes: What Changes if Reform Succeeds?

• Expectations for 5 years from now ([59:51]):
  • Easier, faster energy project investments, more competitive pricing, potential for more abundant data centers and infrastructure, and notably—lower consumer costs and higher reliability.
  • US would be able to compete more effectively with China, Europe, Texas (as an internal benchmark for “getting it right” with renewables).
• Rep. Peters:
  • “I think right away, if we had certainty, people would feel comfortable about investing in the United States again… more energy, potentially lower prices, more reliability. That's what we all want.” ([59:51])

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “If each year of delay is a 10% increase, that’s much less public investment we’re getting. But also we’re delaying the transition to a clean economy.” — Rep. Scott Peters ([13:02])
• “Permitting reform is very much kind of front of mind… But it’s a phrase thrown around… a kind of loose, broad, catch all.” — Ed Crooks ([06:07])
• “Today, the market and the environmental movement are pretty aligned, and getting out of the way would do everyone a service.” — Rep. Scott Peters ([57:17])
• “Things move forward at the speed of trust.” — Dr. Melissa Lott ([42:41])
• “I just think we haven’t done big things in 50 years in this country because we’ve got too much process.” — Rep. Scott Peters ([46:08])
• “I’m scared not to try something else. I know it doesn’t work. And right now we have a bunch of systems that don’t work.” — Rep. Scott Peters ([52:10])
• “The paperwork is almost done. It's not that hard. It's just a matter of putting it on, getting us all in one room and sign it up. And so it's an opportunity.” — Rep. Scott Peters ([54:50])
• On what progress would look like:
  • “More energy, potentially lower prices, more reliability. That's what we all want.” — Rep. Scott Peters ([59:51])

---

Important Timestamps

• 00:00 — Opening discussion on project delays due to permitting complexity
• 02:25 — Introduction of Rep. Scott Peters and his permitting reform background
• 06:07 — Host and panel define the permitting “problem”
• 07:32-12:11 — Deep dive into NEPA’s pros and cons, and how process dominates outcomes
• 13:34 — Introduction of the Certain Act and the politics around NEPA reform
• 16:53-19:11 — Timelines, litigation limits, and digital permitting ("e-permitting")
• 28:22 — Stark comparison: US vs. China, Europe, and S. America on transmission build-out
• 36:50 — Can Congress pass permitting reform? Assessing this political moment
• 42:41 — “Speed of trust” and balancing rapid progress with community buy-in
• 46:08 — Rep. Peters argues for prioritizing action over process
• 59:51 — Vision for what success in permitting reform could look like in 5 years

---

Conclusion

The US energy transition is stymied not by lack of funds or ambition, but by a regulatory “fetish with process” that often defeats its own goals. As clean energy investment and reliability needs soar, the guests argue that meaningful permitting reform—anchored by clarity, fixed timelines, and true certainty—can restore American competitiveness and lower costs. The solution is within sight but requires a careful and courageous political bargain. Listeners come away understanding the stakes, the mechanics, and what must change if the US is to “build big things” again.

---

Transcript

[A]

And they asked how many lines you get built? The answer was zero. The Democratic witness who had come for the Biden administration, she very cheerfully said, well, 20 states are almost through the 14 step process. We set out to do this. And she was not embarrassed, but I was embarrassed.

[B]

If we weren't looking to build stuff to do a lot of good things with, I don't think we'd be as focused on permitting as we are. But when we look at our energy systems, there's a lot of investment that needs to be made into them for a whole host of reasons. And so how can we get permitting to move faster?

[A]

You know, I don't think we could have done the interstate highway system with this regime of regulation. I don't know how we do an interstate grid system. Like, how do we get the grid to be not so old, dumb and small?

[C]

Meeting rising energy demand will require every reliable, scalable source of power available, including nuclear. Bechtel has been at the forefront of nuclear energy for more than 70 years, helping design, build and deliver projects that have shaped the industry around the world, from the first generation of reactors to today's advanced nuclear technologies. Bechtel continues to help bring complex energy projects online safely and reliably. As momentum grows around nuclear power, Bechtel is helping customers move from ambition to execution, delivering the expertise needed to build at scale. Learn [e-mail] that's B E C H T E L.com. Hello and welcome to the Energy Gang, a discussion show from Wood Mackenzie about the fast changing world of energy. I'm ID Crooks and on this show we're going to be talking about why it is so hard to build anything in in America. And particularly obviously that applies to energy infrastructure. And we're going to be talking to someone who has a plan to change that. We'll meet him in just a moment. But first, it's a great pleasure to welcome back Melissa Lott. Melissa is a partner for Energy technologies at Microsoft. Hi, Melissa, how are you?

[A]

Hey, Ed.

[B]

Doing well. Hope your day's going well over there. It's sunny here in Seattle, so I'm enjoying the heck out of that.

[C]

Very nice. Yeah, fantastic. It's great to have you back. It's been a while, hasn't it? I feel like it has.

[B]

I saw Amy Jaffe actually last week and we were talking about that we were scheming for what our next set of discussions needs to be on. We want to reintroduce nuclear, Ed. But another day, another day.

[C]

Yes, it's great to be able to welcome you for a run of shows again. Of course, we have to mention Melissa's usual disclaimer that anything she says on the show is her own personal opinion, not an official statement from Microsoft. And it's also a pleasure to welcome for the first Time Representative Scott Pennsylvania. Scott is a Democratic Congressman representing the 50th district of California in the U.S. house of Representatives. That's a district that includes a good amount of the city of San Diego. Hello, Scott. Welcome to the show. Hi there.

[A]

Thanks for having me. It's, it's sunny here, which I'm used to, but it's extremely hot, which I'm not used to.

[B]

Well, Scott, as Ed knows, I'm actually from Texas and lived on the Central coast for a while in California. And so I, I miss the heat. I really do. I miss the heat every day. I, I can wear long jeans in the middle of a hot summer day in Texas. So there you are.

[C]

Yeah. I have to say it's actually been glorious weather here in New York City as well. So certainly all of us enjoying, you know, we're in that nice kind of period where it's in the springtime, it's kind of warm but not too warm. So we've been enjoying that a lot here as well. So the reason we're particularly keen to have you on the show, Scott, is because of what you're doing on permitting reform. Scott is a co sponsor of the Certain act which is create Expedited Reviews to Transform American American infrastructure. Now certain, the Certain act, and that is a bipartisan bill which is aimed at reforming the law around permits for infrastructure projects in the US we're going to be talking about that bill in some detail in just a moment. Before we do that, though, Scott, something we always like to do when we have new people on the show is talk to them a little bit about their careers, how they got to the roles they now hold. So what's your story? How did you get into politics and why is it that you've taken on permitting reform as a key issue that you're doing so much work on?

[A]

Well, thanks, Ed. I've always been interested in politics, but I started out as a lawyer. I had to make money out of law school. I went to a big law firm and I found myself doing some big Superfund cleanups under the Superfund law and doing environmental law and over 15 year career in big firms in the government office and in my own firm. Did a lot of practice around cleanups, around clean water act, around waste Disposal and some about permitting. It wasn't until years later when I was in San Diego and practicing and, you know, our financial situation was not so desperate that I got mad at the city of San Diego and I decided to run for City Council, which I could do without leaving my family. I could still coach my kids, teams, be home for dinner. But I was working on a few environmental issues there, cleaning up the beaches and bays and getting some redevelopment done. And I was the first Democrat to represent my district in the City Council. It became later the first Democrat to represent this district in Congress. I represent a lot of pragmatic people who want to get things done. And what I found at the city was it just was so hard to get through the permitting process. You want to do a little pocket park, maybe that that project would cost $100,000, but the review it would take to do that would also cost $100,000. So it was just kind of nuts, I thought. And then when I years later, when I got to Congress, I saw the same thing happening and I thought maybe we could figure out how to achieve high, high quality environmental results with a lot less drag on the economy, with a lot less unnecessary cost increase. And so that's how I've kind of found myself in this.

[C]

Right. Got it. So as I say, I want to talk about the details of your bill in a moment. We were just saying just before we started recording, it seems very timely to us to be covering this as a topic. It's something that everyone talks to us about whenever we have anyone on the show from the renewable energy industry, from the utilities, from the tech industry as well. Permanent reform is very much kind of front of mind for them. And it's a phrase, I think, that often gets kind of thrown around in a way that's quite a kind of loose, broad, catch all. People often, I think, don't know exactly what they mean by it or people kind of have a number of different things that they hope it will mean. So I want to get into those details. But Melissa, maybe to bring you on in this first. When you think about permitting reform and as were what the problem is in terms of permitting an infrastructure development, what is the problem that needs fixing?

[B]

You mean a high level. Let's back up for a minute. I think we step into this every day, which is the idea of how do we build the things we want and need to accelerate all the good stuff in our communities and our states and our regions. How do we do that in a practical sense? We have processes in place that are meant to make sure that we evaluate different options. So, Scott, what Ed knows is that I was in the Council on Environmental Quality back in the day and those NEPA binders for the National Environmental, they come in and these reviews were massive.

[C]

And I think we should just jump in and then talk about nepa. I don't know if you want to do that now or in a moment, but because NEPA is, because it's right at the heart of what we're talking about here, I think it's worth taking a little bit of time to kind of walk through it.

[B]

When it comes to NEPA review, Ed, just at a high level, that's one step in the process of getting something built. And so when I look at the different proposals for how we speed up permitting, my questions are two One, is it practical? Can we implement this? Is it going to be something that provides clarity and actually helps us to move faster? And two, is the end result of all it going to be an increased ability to build the things that we want? And we has a bunch of different definitions. I'll park that one for a second. But is it going to help to streamline things? Is it going to cause some clarity to be in a process where there was confusion or maybe just not enough hands to lift and work through all the different steps of the process? The last thing I'll just say is if we weren't looking to build stuff to do a lot of good things with, I don't think we'd be as focused on permitting as we are. But when we look at our energy systems, there's a lot of investment that needs to be made into them for a whole host of reasons. And so how can we get permitting to move faster?

[C]

So, Scott, when you think about this, what do you think of as the problem you're trying to fix?

[A]

Well, so I mean, as a Democrat, I was really proud to support the trillion dollar infrastructure bill under President Biden. I was bipartisan, mostly Democrats and the ira, which intended to be the biggest down payment on climate action in the history of the world. I'm embarrassed by how little we got done because there was so much process to get from A to Z. And classic, the best hearing, you know, the best illustration of that was a hearing we did on the broadband capacity at my committee. Republicans, very appropriately, when they took office, they had a hearing on the $43 billion we had set aside to close the digital divide, both in rural areas and in cities. And they asked, how many lines did you get built? The answer was zero. And the Democratic witness who had come for the Biden administration. She very cheerfully said, well, 20 states are almost through the 14 step process. We set out to do this. And she was not embarrassed, but I was embarrassed. And I think the thing is we've gotten so tied up in process, we forgot about the product. NEPA was the first environmental law passed in 1970. And back then I think people in my seat were trying to respond to the environmental challenges of the day, which is we were making big mistakes. So NEPA was a simple bill. It just said before you do anything that could affect the environment, know what the impacts will be, what will be the environmental impacts and know what the alternatives are. And that was a simple thing back then that preceded the Clean Water act, the Clean Air act, the bills that actually prevent the emission or regulate the emission of pollutants into the environment that could affect the environment and human health. Deepa was the first bill. It was just a planning tool, but now it's become the most litigated of all the environmental statutes. And because for a big project, whether it's a transmission line or a energy project, there's so much effort going into not being sued. The process of preparing a NEPA document or environmental impact statement, you know, gets on to years, four years in the case of a big project and then you have litigation afterward, that could be another four years. That's a, that's a huge, huge cost, as you know, for delay. But the other thing that's happening is it's, it's becoming an, we're getting an anti environment result because what wants to be built now is clean energy. What wants to be built is transportation projects that get people out of their cars are, the environmental laws are getting in the way of that. And so that's why I think we have to take it on. We want to build offshore wind, utility scale, solar hydrogen pipelines, direct air capture, all those things need permits on the natural. 90, 80 to 90% of the projects that want to get built in energy are non emitting. We are slowing them down with the environmental laws. And that's just a backwards result.

[C]

Right, and to be clear then about the role of NEPA then. So I mean, I think I want to be clear partly because I sometimes hear different versions of this story, as you say. So NEPA, National Environmental Policy act passed in 1970, is that as you say, sort of enabling law, framework law, originally pretty simple, but there has kind of become built on it this whole edifice, this whole structure of you have to do an environmental impact review or an environmental impact statement in different circumstances according to how big your project is. And then those reviews can get challenged and kind of have to be redone, as you say. And these things take years and years. What is. Well, go on, Melissa. I mean, what's your view on how this law works?

[B]

So two things I think there's the intention and then how it's in practice in Scott, I'm curious if you've seen it differently from where you're sitting on the Hill. But nepa, it was simple. It was supposed to say know what you are going to do, the impacts of what you're going to do before you do it. It does not make the decision if you do it. However, when you have these drawn out processes that go 4, 8, 14, extended open ended until a period of time, processes kind of does make the decision on if it gets done or not. And so this is where attention lies. The original intention of the, of NEPA was let's evaluate the consequences of this project and then figure out if there's an easy way to kind of mitigate pieces of it to make it a little bit better. Okay, you could shift it a mile to the left or right and have less of an impact on the environment. Then you can make an informed choice. But now it is this long, long process that effectively determines what kind of projects can get built.

[A]

The cost of that in public dollars of each year, if each year of delay is a 10% increase, that's much less public investment we're getting. But also we're delaying the transition to a clean economy and a cleaner energy system. I think the thing we have to recognize is that it would be great to have perfect information. But these delays have costs that you have to weigh against what you're losing.

[C]

Right. So then NTU and this as a bipartisan group of members of Congress with the certain act.

[A]

I think the first thing was the attempt at NEPA reform in the House, the Speed act, which was led by Bruce Westerman, chairman of Natural Resources, a Republican, and Jared golden from Maine, a Democrat. And the idea of that was to sort of constrain the amount of time that you could take to do a NEPA review, but also to clip on the back end the the length of time litigation could take and the remedies that could be imposed. And actually that passed with 11 Democratic votes, very popular among Republicans. But the debate at the end was about the certain act. And so just to put that in context, this came at the time when the Trump administration started to pull the plug on. Well, so to speak on, on wind projects, offshore wind projects that had already been permitted and were under construction. I knew as a lawyer you couldn't do that, that those, those, those developers would be able to go into court and get their permits restored. But it scared the heck out of people. And we started saying, look, if you want us to do a deal on nepa, Republicans, we have to have some certainty, some, some understanding that the permit process will be more certain. So the certain act both imposed sort of deadlines in the permitting process as it goes, and then reinforced that you can't pull the plug from something that's already been permitted. When the speed act came to the floor, Chairman Westerman, to his credit, had put a lot of the certain act language into the speed Act. But then he came up against some very anti win members of the Republican party who were on the floor, pulled it out. And I think if that had not been pulled out, Bruce would have gotten a lot more than 11 Democrats voting for it than he did. Maybe, you know, something near 30. So certainty has become an issue that's a little bit related to nepa, but it's one on its own.

[C]

So in terms of what actually makes progress through Congress now, is the speed act still alive? Is the idea that the speed act and the certain act could both get passed? Will there be some kind of unified bill at some point? How do you think it's going to play out?

[A]

Well, I think NEPA reform has to be part of any big permitting deal. And I think the speed act has passed the House. So I mean, it did. It passed with 11 Democratic votes. Some, but not a lot could have had more. That's part of it. I think we have to deal with certainty at some point. And you know, the other thing that's happening is, you see, you know, when Doug Burgum, the secretary of the Interiors himself, assigned with having to sign off on all 69 steps of a permit to get a wind project on federal land, including can I go out and test the wind? Doug Burgum has to sign off on that. I mean, that can't happen. That's all got. That's all got to go. That's what the certain act would do, would require regular milestones along the way for permitting. So that's got to be part of it. I think. Then you have to talk about transmission policy in general, which is a separate thing. Maybe you talk about pipeline policy, maybe you talk about methane, but there's a lot of elements that could go into a big deal. But I think the academics are Easier than the politics right now.

[B]

Scott, tell me if I'm reading it differently. So when I look at the Speed act, one of the major things about it is about setting timelines, like saying, hey, if a decision is going to be made, you got a certain period of time to make it in. And it's a little bit different than when I was over at CEQ, where we were talking about providing clarity around who's on first, what's on second, you know, what is the process. So who has to make a decision in a certain amount of time? We did that with executive orders, but when I was reading through it, I mean, it talks through. Okay. There are only certain conditions where you can kick off a NEPA review. So it's not just automatic, okay, there's some federal money going into this. We just. We definitely will do a review. And then there were timeframes set. Okay. If you're gonna challenge it, you got a window. If you're going to file something, something, you've got a window. Did I miss any major components when you were thinking when this is being discussed that people are highlighting?

[A]

Yeah, I think there's the issue of remedies, that remedies are constrained for bad reviews. So I think the limits on injunctions to stop projects, I think, is the other significant thing. By the way, I think the other problem that's come up is sometimes we hear people say, well, just put more staff on NEPA reviews. But there's so many projects. I mean, we're talking about tens of thousands of projects that we anticipated under the ira that this. This system can't keep up with that. And so we really need to look differently at it. And I think we need to let go of some of this upfront planning. I think we should also recognize that zoning laws exist all over the country. There's no better way for the public to get real input than at a city council hearing, which I chaired many of. And so I don't think necessarily we have to recreate that public input exactly at the federal level. But the other thing we've done to make public input better, which is completely unanimously agreed to already, is e permitting. The idea is that you would not have to do this all through paper. You would do this digitally. That each agency within the government would get to see the same documents, the same studies. The public would get to see it. That bill I did with Dusty Johnson of South Dakota, that's already passed as well. And that alleviates some of the concern up front about public participation.

[C]

Right. So just thinking about Then permitting reform, then as a broader package, then key principles are. So one is what set timetables and quite constrained timetables for the government to make a decision. So you get what is it typically, what it would be. No more than a year for an environmental review or less than that.

[A]

The old. Now, the old. You're testing my memory. The old rule was one year for environmental assessment and two years for an environmental impact state, which is more detailed. But I think the other thing, Ed, is that to bring a lawsuit, you can't wait six years. You have a number of months. I think that's the big change in terms of timing. If you want to bring a challenge, you can't wait around. Right now, the default statute of limitations in the United States administrative law is six years. That's very, very impractical. And again, if you're a climate advocate, you don't want that, because what you're getting in the way of today is clean energy.

[C]

Right. And some of those other key provisions then in the certain act. So legal remedies when agencies miss deadlines to complete reviews, stronger interagency coordination. So you don't get a number of different agencies all needing to pitch it and have their say on a particular project, as you say, protection for permits that have been issued already to stop them being arbitrarily taken away by the federal government. And I see you're calling it accountability measures, but as you say, something essentially being done to address capacity constraints at permitting agencies. So that, as you say, given the enormous workload that often exists in terms of reviewing projects, issuing permits for projects, things just don't get held up forever.

[A]

Right.

[C]

In terms of the politics around this, then, are the politics fundamentally different because of this point about the Trump administration and the attitude they've been taking to wind power in particular, that, as you say, there have been these onshore wind projects that have been blocked by the federal government. We're seeing, for instance, this was something that was talked about a lot at the ACOR Finance forum that I went to recently, the Department of War, in issuing objections to new wind projects getting built on grounds of national security. And, of course, the administration's campaign against offshore wind projects. There was a series of court battles where those projects that are currently under development had to fight to have their permits restored so that work could continue. Does that kind of change the way Congress and the industry, I guess, in general think about executive authority, that it's sort of become clear to people now that executive authority can be used to restrict the renewables industry in a way that it was perhaps used to restrict the oil and gas industry in the past.

[A]

Oh, well, first of all, there's not even a comparison to that. I think there was some, there was some discussion of the Biden administration tapping the brakes on oil and gas, but they would never have pulled the permit on something that was already permitted. That's just this is completely new. And it did change the politics for quite a bit, because at the beginning, Sheldon Whitehouse, who's a senator representing Rhode island and on one of the major committees of the lead Democrat on one of the major committees of jurisdiction in the Senate, and Martin Heinrich from New Mexico, who's in charge of the other one, they both said, we're not talking about permanent reform until we get this right. And it wasn't until the Trump administration made some gestures that they weren't going to fight those court rulings against them, that until there wasn't until then that the senators even started talking again. The Trump administration never admits its wrongs, so you can't know how long that's going to last. But that was really devastating in that moment. And we're hoping that talks could continue. But beyond this, I think the other thing to note is if you look at who supports the certain act, this concept of certainty and permitting, it's not just the clean energy developers. It's also the natural gas folks. It's also the American Petroleum Institute, it's also labor. All of those constituencies want regularity. They want certainty. For various reasons. Labor did not like getting pulled off of their laborers getting pulled off of the Revolution Wind project at the whim of the Trump. They also didn't like the Keystone pipeline not getting built right. The energy industry looks at this uncertainty and what it does to cost, but also what it does to investments. One European investor, large European investor, told me that when they saw revolution win and the treatment that the Trump administration was giving and the lack of certainty, they said, wow, we're starting to think of investing in United States energy as if it's Brazil or Vietnam. I mean, that's embarrassing. But that also poses a huge cost of new risk that I think Americans take for granted that this notion that we're a safe place to invest. But if you see that irregularity in the application of law, that lack of certainty, there's real downsides for everybody. So that's why I think the certain act itself and the concept of certainty has been so broadly embraced going forward. And, you know, we're not, we're not solving a problem just for the next two years. We're solving a problem for the next few decades and there will be another president after Trump and no one wants to see this continue or this to be directed at another form of energy in the same, in the same way. I think it's a really important part of the politics.

[B]

Well, and I think there's a piece here around let's go back to NEPA for a minute. Just because we hung out with it for a bit and it's a huge part of this and it's a part of these discussions we're having today. There was a whole discussion. It's come up many times. I've been doing energy for 25 years, four or five significant times where we've talked about we should completely redo nepa, and there's concerns around that too, because of the uncertainty. So when you talk about investment and saying, all right, well, depending on, there's one thing to say, we're going to have a timeframe, we're going to provide certainty in a process that you will have a decision, whatever it is, or you'll have an outcome or you'll have whatever the piece of the process is, it'll be done by a certain time. That's very different than I'm going to redo the rules and change the game. I'm going to change the playing field. And so folks are now scattering around and not knowing, okay, what is next in this process, et cetera. And that's been some key criticisms when I've heard of proposals about completely redoing NEPA against it. Now, your proposals providing clarity and certainty, it's a little bit different. And I do want to come back to your point, Ed, about how this is one step in a permitting process. We talked about city council meetings, we talked about local regulations and communities and the idea that anything we do to NEPA will completely sort everything out and all of a sudden building stuff will be very swift and easy if a committee wants it. That's not the case either. But it is an important step in this whole process.

[A]

I think it's the biggest obstacle, to be fair. I think it's the most important thing we can do at the federal level right now.

[C]

And I do agree. I think that point about legislation being really important here because under the US System, legislation tends to be quite hard to change. Takes a lot of work and effort to get something passed through both houses of Congress and signed into law by the president. And so you just aren't going to get that same flip flopping things that happen with executive action. As you say, we've seen that already happen in a very dramatic way with the shifts between Obama and then Trump and then Biden and then Trump again being president. And it'll change again. That's pretty clear. When the presidency change again, changes again as well. And so that actually does make it really hard for the industry to plan. And to take a long term view, if you're trying to build assets that might take five or 10 years to build and then be in service for 20 years or 40 years, it's really tricky. And I mean you sort of, you can think of a model, right, where if, if it takes five years to build a new oil pipeline or five years to build an offshore wind farm and the presidency changes every four years and can block either an oil pipeline or an offshore wind farm, depending on their political complexion, then nothing ever gets built anywhere. That's a sort of an exaggerated statement of the position. But it does feel like that's a bit similar to where the US has been in recent years, doesn't it?

[A]

Yeah, I think actually the numbers bear that out. If you talk about transmission, interregional transmission, since 2014, North America has built about 7 gigawatts of interregional transmission, about half that in the United States. In South America, 22 in Europe, 44. And in China, over 260 gigawatts of inter regional transmission. I mean, it's not like America doesn't need power. We're supposedly, we're going to see a huge increase in, I mean we are going to see a huge increase in demand for electricity. We better figure out how to build more generation and more transmission.

[C]

Yeah, the numbers are shocking. I know we follow this at Wood, Mackenzie, and I think our number is the last time the US built more than 1000 miles of high voltage transmission line was back in 2016. Hasn't been more than that since then. Which is, as you say, given everything we talk about all the time about rising power demand, we should probably make

[A]

sure that while we're on that, that we understand that NEPA is a big part of the reform. But NEPA will not get reformed without transmission reforms. I think Democrats see that as critical for getting energy from where it's generated to where it's needed for reliability, for costs. And there's good proposals on that too. But I think it's hard for me to see NEPA getting enough Democratic votes in the Senate, the Speed act, to get enough Democratic votes to Senate without some assurance that we're going to deal with transmission as well. I think they go together.

[C]

Right? So yeah, let's talk about that then. Let's talk about putting those different building blocks together then. So we've got the SPEED act, as you say, we've got the certain act. We have, as you say, a need for some kind of legislation on electricity transmission which is not specifically covered in the certain act at the moment, is it? Or in the SPEED Act. So that's some, an extra, an extra element that potentially needs to be added in, as you say, possibly something on pipelines also. What does the kind of, the final. If there is this kind of grand bargain to be done, this kind of big beautiful permitting bill, if I can use that language that finally gets passed, what does it look like, do you think?

[A]

This is an example of making the problem bigger to solve the problem. But on transmission, that work has already been done, I think to our satisfaction with the Manchin Barrasso work that they did in the last Congress. Senator Manchin, a Democrat slash independent, and Senator Barrasso, who's part of Republican leadership, worked out a way for planning, for permitting and for paying for inter regional transmission. Which are the three things you have to do in the Environmental Permanent Reform act or epra. I think we're looking at ways to take that off the shelf and add this in because I think that the permitting parts of that would be really, really helpful. And that's got its opponents as well. But that's part of it. And you could see a deal where if you dealt with NEPA certainty and transmission, that that would be enough. I would also say we could talk more about this if you want. Republicans are very interested in pipeline relief from a provision of the Clean Water Act, Section 401. Section 401 has been used by governors, most famously in New York, to stop pipelines from going underneath their land. Which is why in Massachusetts, one of the reasons why in Massachusetts people are still burning fuel oil for their homes, which is insane.

[C]

And they're importing LNG also at times, even though it can be 10 times the price of the gas that comes from the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania.

[A]

Just on that. One of the vexing things for Selden Whitehouse is that I think Revolution Wind is contracted to provide power to New England at 9 cents a kilowatt hour, where the regular price is, is 18 cents. So you know, there's lots of irrationalities. It's hard for me to imagine Democrats agreeing to amend the Clean Water act without getting something. And I think the something that we need is some certainty about around methane, fugitive methane capture I also think that is not that difficult to imagine because Obama passed rules, Trump, Trump repealed them, Biden passed rules and Trump is dismantling those as well. And over the objection of the industry which says, please just give us rules that we can comply with and they know how to comply with it. It's consumer demand for clean gas from England, from uk, I mean from uk, from the eu, from Korea and from Japan that's induced the industry to come up with the technology not just to detect the presence of methane, but the concentration of methane and to give them all the ability to monitor and control methane. We would want, we should write those rules down in a piece of legislation that can't change from president to president and give the industry certainty and also give the environmental community some assurance that we've dealt with this very, very low hanging climate action of methane, which is very, very, very much more damaging greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide in the short run, but doesn't persist in the environment. So if you could, it's a short lived climate, climate agent. So if you just get rid of that as part of the mix, you can have a real effect on the rate of climate change. In a way, I think that would be meaningful for those of us who care about, care about that issue.

[C]

The world is going to need more power delivered faster and at greater scale than ever before. Nuclear energy will play a critical role in meeting that demand. For more than 70 years, Bechtel has helped deliver some of the most complex nuclear projects in the world, supporting more than 150 nuclear facilities globally and helping to bring over 76,000 megawatts of nuclear power online. From early commercial reactors to today's next generation technologies, Bechtel has helped shape the industry at every stage of its evolution. Now, as momentum grows around energy security and AI driven power demand, Bechtel is helping customers advance the next wave of nuclear energy, including large scale plants, small modular reactors and advanced reactor technologies. Because building the future of energy requires more than vision. It requires the experience and expertise to deliver safely, reliably and at scale. Learn [e-mail] that's B E C H T E L.com. So as I hear you describe it now, there are a lot of positive developments for supporters of permitting reform. A lot of things potentially coming together. I can't help feeling somewhat skeptical though, just given the recent legislative history in that. I mean, as you well know, you don't need me to tell you any of this, but you know, it feels like we've been here before a few times, you mentioned and Joe mentioned earlier, one of the things that Joe mentioned, said the Democratic senator from West Virginia, one of the things he said when he supported the Inflation reduction act in 2022 was he wanted that to be tied up with permitting reform. And permitting reform was the sort of the other half of that dual strategy to both support investment in clean energy and make it easier to get that new clean energy infrastructure built. It didn't happen then. Since when? We've had a few goes around, as you say, successive years, successive bills have come and gone. Nothing has yet passed. I can also detect a certain amount of weariness and wariness in the industry when I talk to people about permitting reform. Been a lot of talk about this. Nothing's happened yet. Is actually Congress going to deliver on this? We're not sure what's your sense of it. And if you had to kind of give people a positive message in terms of reasons why they should be more hopeful that this time it's going to pass when it hasn't done in the past, what would you say to people?

[A]

First of all, you're right to be skeptical. I mean, the default position is always it's not going to happen. I would say, though, that I just told you a deal that would make a significant difference for the country that Republicans and Democrats, there's parts of which each, each party really cares about. Right. And would get a lot. I think, you know, there's, there's an inertia here to, you know, that's, it's built to be hard. But I would say that people understand that this is an opportunity. I think Joe Manchin's point was proven by the fact that we did all, you know, we put all this money out there, but it stayed in the bank. It didn't get into the ground. And so we have to grapple with that process problem. I do think that when 85 or 90% of the energy projects that wanted to get permitted during the Biden administration were clean, where China and Texas are building out all this wind and solar, but that's what we're holding back. I think the environmental movement is starting to recognize that, and I think this is a time to do it. The other thing I would say to people is that right now for Republicans, this is the best deal they can get because right now they control the House, the Senate and the President. All the leverage is in their favor. They can have permit reform, they can have NEPA reform, they can have 401 reform. They're going to have to give up something to the, to the Democrats in the Senate, because even though they control the Senate, they need 70, they need 60 votes. That's seven Democratic senators they've got to convince, but it's only seven people. And you know, the, the field is pretty narrow. So I think, yes, it's difficult, but I don't think we've been in a better position to do this, something big like this since I've been here, which is my 14th year now.

[C]

And do you think Congress can pass a bill that President Trump would sign into law? How big of a risk is there that he might reject something that you agree on?

[A]

Well, first, he hasn't gotten in the way. I don't think, I don't think we've heard that he's opposed to it. I think actually he's issued an executive order or two that are consistent with these principles. I figure we just name it after him, give him all the credit and he'll sign it.

[B]

So, Ed, you can see my face on this. And I like, I want to weigh in on a couple different things, but one thing I'll say that I think, and Scott, tell me if this is not what you were communicating, but when I've worked with groups on both sides of the aisles, at states, at local, at federal, we agree on the end point. We want to get to, in the sense of being able to build things that are good for our communities, we want to find a way to do that in a responsible way. We disagree perhaps on what process changes might be necessary to achieve that. And we get stuck into that discussion a lot. So I talk to a camp that think we need whole hogged reform on the entire center of the permitting world. At the federal level, I've got others that say, just leave that alone. I'll handle everything at the local level. And then I've got folks who are in line with the things that we've been talking about so far saying we need tweaks that make these things more practical. And so I will say it's interesting because this whole space is one that, Ed, when we've talked about permitting and getting infrastructure built, let's actually broaden it for a second. There is a space for a lot of agreement, I think, and a lot of movement forward. And we get caught up in the details. In my experience, I don't know, Scott, is your experience different? And it's like, oh, I want this, not that. And it's like, but the end of the North Star is being able to build things that we believe are good for our communities, good for our states good for our regions.

[C]

And maybe, Scott, just while you're thinking about your response to that, I want to come back to you, Melissa, on this point about, as you say, the discussions we've had on exactly this issue down the years on this show. And I feel it's quite often been a difference between us in the sense that I've been much more supportive of more radical permitting reform and much more prepared to say we just need change because the need to get this new investment is so urgent we can afford to or we can't put it the other way, we can't afford to be over cautious here. And so if there are some costs to expediting infrastructure investment, those are costs we're just going to have to bear because the need is so great, the prices are great. And I feel like what you've said down the airs to me in response is, yes, you accept the need for reform, but as you say, the details are important and you would, I think, be supportive of a model of reform that makes sure that various considerations, environmental considerations, considerations, community consent are still respected. And I think I would not be. Well, I mean, let me know if I'm mischaracterizing your position, but one of the things I think I've learned from you is to say that these two points are not necessarily contradictory in the sense that if you actually win support from local communities, that is the best way to make sure that you can actually get your infrastructure investment built and that the projects you have can make progress and that permits you're awarded will be robust and will last if you go through those processes the right way. And so actually worrying about those environmental and social issues is not necessarily inimical to making progress on getting infrastructure built in a speedy way on the timetable that is needed. Is that fair?

[B]

I think it's fair. I think what we come back to at the core of our are they disagreements? I don't think they're arguments. But our debates back and forth comes back to, okay, let's go back to Schoolhouse Rock. Let's talk about how Bill becomes the law and how we decided to structure this country in terms of making decisions that affect all of us. And within that, we have practical structures and practical constraints on what we're able to do. I mean, that goes back to the founding of the country. That's just this is what it is. And when it comes to a practical pathway forward, what you hear me often say is that things move forward at the speed of trust. And so within this, it's like, how do we create transparency. How do we create practical pathways forward? I'm an academic in my former life or my current life, I don't know. But I'm like, there's the theory of how it could work and then there's the practical pathway forward. And I think, Scott, you see this every day and how you actually get something to pass, and how do you actually find that middle ground that can actually work through whatever head of whatever needle you're trying to thread? And we can't lose sight of what is the practical step forward and what are we trying to accomplish. And so what I'll say is I think we have tensions in our system around if we treat electricity and energy as a public good or not. It's something that protects us and keeps us healthy in our homes. It's something that powers our businesses. I mean, that's what it fundamentally is. No offense to a kilowatt hour and an electron. I don't really care. I care about the service it does and the service it gives me. And so I think I'm having a flashback to a discussion we had on a geothermal project not too far from where I actually live now, and talking about how what was the acceptable trade off that was allowed on that project to move it forward? And I think where I come is that back to the core of what environmental impact statements and reviews are supposed to do. They're supposed to identify impact so we can make an informed choice so we're not just blazing through. And so I'm saying, is the current structure actually supporting that end? Is it getting us what we need? Or has it become convoluted in a way that actually prevents us from recognizing and stepping into an opportunity? The other thing I will say is, you've also heard me say, and I've said this publicly, it's in one of my congressional testimonies where I say one of my biggest fears in this moment is I spent 25 years working in power and electricity. I touch oil and gas and other sectors. But I have been in the conversation of we just don't have the growth. We just don't have the opportunity to make the investments we need to, to make sure that we don't have dozens of hours of the power being out if you live in Louisiana, or other negative impacts. And I'm concerned that we won't be able to step into the opportunity we have now where we have increasing demand for electricity coming from a whole host of drivers. And I'm like, how do we use this to actually make the system better and to make all of our communities healthier. That's where my focus is. So do we disagree, Ed? I don't know. I think we might fall in the camp of we disagree on the process to get to the outcome that we both agree on.

[C]

Exactly. No, I think we're in 100% agreement on the outcomes. But as you say, sometimes the details about the process and the means to that shared end, sometimes those can be quite significant. I mean, Scott, what do you think then, when you hear Melissa talk about the details being important and implementation being important, how do you get that balance right? And how do you get confident in what you're going to pass through? Congress does get that balance right.

[A]

I just think we haven't done big things in 50 years in this country because we've got too much process. And Nick Bagley, the professor of law at University of Michigan, calls it Democrats fetish with process. I think we have to look at what you give up to have those conversations. The context of what I was told when I came to Congress was 10 years to get climate change done. We're supposed to have a sense of urgency about this. Now, I think Melissa's right. We have a sense of urgency about whether we can keep the lights on. And I would just say that there's lots of protections we have, aside from nepa and the other thing, I think when you look at, of course, we all agree what we want at the end, right? But how to get there is the issue. If you ask the people who are trying to build clean energy, what's in the way, they say nepa. Ask them, ask them. They say nepa. So, I mean, I guess I think I'm at the point where I don't think we could have done the interstate highway system with this regime of regulation. I don't know how we do an interstate grid system. How do we get the grid to be not so old, dumb and small? And I just think the process is the problem here. The process is the problem here to get to where we want to go. And I think, like I said at the beginning, when we had nepa, we had no other environmental laws. Now we have a ton of them. Every permit that you get, aside from NEPA requires, requires you to answer a lot of questions about environmental impacts. I think we can let our foot off that one a little bit because we have other protections. We have other lots of input opportunities at the local level. We gotta get this done. We gotta get this transition to a clean economy going. And I think the process has proven to Be the biggest problem.

[B]

I'm remembering a report from 2021 called Was it building Cleaner, Faster? It was out of the Aspen Institute and had Congressman Tonko and cast him. Yeah, and Jim and Katie. Exactly. And within that, they kept highlighting. And when I talked to Jim and Katie just a couple months ago, we were reminiscing about this report and it highlighted how, look, we're not. In no case are we saying, even if you change nepa, even if you change these processes, you still can't break the law. And we have these other laws, to your point. So we have a Clean Air act, we have a Clean Water act, we have the other things you have to comply with the law. That is the end result, both in terms of what you're proposing, being able to comply with it, but then also your operation of that system, actually complying in operation. It is important to realize this is not the only gateway when it comes to, you know, different protections that we have across communities. But I want to step back into this. Do we think this is enough question, Ed, if we can, which is okay, how far do we need to go? If you want to just practically speak about getting infrastructure built, stepping into this opportunity, I agree with you. If we haven't built something in decades, we got a little muscle atrophy. We need to work out. We need to, like, start. Start walking so we can run, so we can go faster and faster. And I think that based on how our systems are structured, it influences how we will be able to build out this infrastructure. And again, going from the theoretically ideal to the practical. And I just, I still am very curious about your thoughts. And, Ed, if your thoughts have changed around how we practically step down this road and move things forward in terms of the conversation.

[C]

So practically, you mean beyond what might happen with legislation or.

[B]

No, I mean, so it's legislation. And is it this piece of legislation? Like, what is the mix of things that has to happen for us to be able to have a different conversation? We've had a lot of conversations about permitting reform for my entire career. I did Scott, his background. I worked on the competitive renewable energy zones in Texas and how we actually did that. We had a structure that allowed it, that allowed the state to be a living laboratory for let's build these things out. So I'm like, where are those other places you can step into if we want to move this conversation forward?

[C]

Yeah, well, actually, Scott, come to you in a moment on this, because a very practical example of that, I always think is electricity transmission, where federal policy on transmission might be the least of the issues involved there. The number of different organizations that have a say on whether a transmission policy gets built. You know, the regional transmission operator, the utilities, the regulators, the states, localities, sometimes individual landowners that where the land, the line might go across their land and so on. It's still a fantastically complicated picture which many, many different parties can intervene on. And so even if you get the federal policy right, and of course federal policy has been there have been these transmission corridors and things set by energy policy going back to the 2000s, which didn't apparently have a massive impact. It's just really, really difficult. And partly it's to do with the political system and the legal system of the United States and how complicated it is and the levels of federalism and so on. So as you say, Scott, when you make those comparisons with China, it's just such a different society from China. It's never going to be able to build infrastructure anything like as fast as China can. I wonder whether that inclines you to certain feeling of hopelessness in the sense that you can do something, you can do a little bit and you can make a change, but you're just not going to transform the entire system and make it radically different in terms of how rapidly infrastructure can be deployed.

[A]

Well, Ed, I'm not going to start out by saying I'm going to lose.

[C]

I mean that's not how I think of it. Right.

[A]

I could even compare. I was also comparing to Europe and South America, which on inter regional transmission are also kicking our tails. Look, my approach to this and like Melissa, I don't know if I'll have a perfect answer, but I want to fix, I want to make a better process and then we can see how we, I want to improve it. Right. We can do better than we're doing today. And you know, you talked about that bill in 2005, they set out this notion of designating quarters, you know, certain corridors as of national interest. And then we gave birth backstop authority to FERC that if the states couldn't agree or the regions couldn't agree, that we would come into. And that hasn't worked. We haven't built a single line off that. So I want a new process. I want process that's going to build lines. I don't think I'm not scared to try something else. I'm scared not to try something else. I know it doesn't work. And right now we have a bunch of systems that don't work. And one of them is, I think the way nepa is being deployed. I think the way transmission is being planned and not being planned and not being built. So my perspective is, I probably won't come up with the perfect answer, but I just think we've got a lot of agreement about a different way to try stuff that shows a lot of promise for doing a lot better. And I mean a little bit better. I mean, a lot better. And maybe, I mean, of course we're not going to be China. We have labor laws. You know, we have, we have, you know, we have all sorts of respect for land and things like that. But on the other hand, I don't think we can say we're never going to be able to compete. Why don't we. We just don't want to give up on the AI war. We don't want to give up on providing reliable energy for our constituents or give up on. On, you know, retiring old coal plants and replacing them with clean. I think we gotta. We gotta work toward that stuff. So that's why I get on the plane every week from San Diego, which is much better weather than here.

[B]

Around that while. While you're here and while we're all recording this together. Scott, I. So I've become way more interesting at cocktail parties again in my work around energy. People want to know about electricity. They're thinking about where their energy comes from for a lot of different reasons, and not just for the past several months, but it's just over the past few years, it's become a lot more interesting. I'm curious how you approach those conversations and also, what are the biggest, like, concerns you hear when you're engaging with your constituents in San Diego, which is, yes, a gorgeous part of the country, and when I enjoy visiting. But you're spending a tremendous amount of your time on this because it is really important for a variety of reasons. How do you explain that to someone who doesn't live, breathe and eat this?

[A]

My communications people sort of said, who cares about, you know, permit form, right? So in San Diego, you're like, this

[C]

is why talk about costs.

[A]

You know, I think, you know, I sort of. Someone said to me, I think this is right. We face a. We face a future of either higher energy costs or astronomically higher energy costs. And I think that's true. I just think we, you know, we know that it's going to. That it's going to. Energy is going to become more dear and more expensive, and the longer it takes us to build new energy, if people understand that, that means it's going to be more money out of their pockets. And here in D.C. i just say, look, I mean, we all came here to solve problems. There's a few of, there's a few people here who came to be on TV and a few people here who came to be tourists and look at stuff. But most of us came here to solve problems. This is a huge opportunity where the, like I said, the paperwork is almost done. It's not that hard. It's just a matter of putting it on, getting us all in one room and sign it up. And so it's an opportunity. I think this year is a unique opportunity to get this done. So I'm trying to really press on everybody that whether you're concerned about climate change or whether you're concerned about business growth, this is an urgent moment and a moment of opportunity. And I just hope we'll jump on it because I think that there's real improvement opportunities right before us.

[C]

Yeah, and to cite Some more Wood MacKenzie data, again on that point about costs. We have these numbers showing that the cost of installing utility scale solar in the US is more than twice what it is in China. And I guess you'd say, well, okay, you kind of expect that. That's sort of. But it's also very significantly more than it is in Europe. And that's, you know, when, when the U guess is the higher cost jurisdiction than Europe. That's kind of, I think that should give everyone pause for thought in this country. And if you look at the breakdown of where the costs come, actually a lot of that sort of permitting and planning and designing the system and all those kind of things that are driven by regulation and legislation, those are a really important part of that cost stack. And so that I think is, as you say, just in terms of thinking about why people should care about permitting reform, that whole issue of costs and affordability which is so live for everyone at the moment in terms of energy, I think it is, as you say, directly relevant to that.

[A]

Another perspective on that, though, and that Melissa may have some insight onto, is Texas, like Texas, has the closest to a free market in energy development that we have in the United States. Texas is very proud of being an oil and gas producer and they should be. That's very important. But I think other than China, they have more wind than anybody. I think they just passed California and solar, not because there's some big climate advocates, but because that's what the market's installing. That's why I just say, I think you were talking about it being more expensive than China or Europe. Yet there it's coming up in Texas where there's a free market. It seems to me that today the market and the environmental movement are pretty aligned, and getting out of the way would do everyone a service.

[C]

Yeah. To be fair, those numbers I was citing are US Averages. And as you say, I'm sure it varies considerably from state to state. And also, I have to say, very interesting. I noticed you mentioned this earlier on as we were talking. You talked about clean energy development in China and Texas and sort of linking those two things together. And it's perhaps not that often that you think about those two jurisdictions in the same breath, but as you say, it is very clear in terms of renewable energy development, they are two places that are getting it right rhetorically.

[A]

They're really good points of embarrassment because Republicans don't want to lose to China and Californians don't want to lose to Texas. So we all need to get off our backsides and compete with these people.

[C]

Yeah, good point. Good point. So I have a thought about this, then, in terms of sort of framing this question, which is, what does the world look like? How is the world different if this reform passes, if you get this package of changes through Congress and get signed into law by President Trump in five years, what will we be able to look at in the United States and say, hey, this is something that's happened that could not have happened if we didn't pass reform? I'm having a bit of a vision of it. Do you know that kind of meme of the sort of utopian, idyllic kind of futuristic society, and the picture of it, and the caption says the world, if. Then it's the way things could be different if only something had happened. If you think about that, with permitting reform, are we going to see, I mean, I'm choosing five years as sort of arbitrary time horizon. Do you think we'd see a material difference in five years, or does it take longer than that? And what would those differences be?

[A]

I think right away, if we had certainty, people would feel comfortable about investing in the United States again. I think if they knew that the timelines were shorter, it would be more attractive, potentially. Prices would be lower, and we might actually, you know, have data centers. We didn't talk too much about data centers, but there's ways to have data centers deployed that actually can help lower energy costs for the communities around them. But, you know, we got to if, you know, I think we might be proud to see things getting built again, but I think on the ground, more energy potentially Lower prices, more reliability. That's what we all want. And, you know, I think we got to change the process if we want to get that.

[C]

And as you were saying earlier, you're not in it to lose, but how hopeful are you that something will happen this year and legislation will get passed?

[A]

Well, I got to get out of bed every morning, Ed. I think, you know, I'm, I, I do. I want to work really hard to see if we can't close this deal. I think, like, you know, it's, it's asymptotic. Remember the asymptote? You just keep getting closer and closer, but you never get there. I hope that it's very close to. The analytics are a lot. The analytics, the academics are a lot easier than the politics. We just got to convince a few important people to step into the arena and be willing to trade. And, you know, gosh, if we could do it, it would really make a big difference. I think that's why a lot of us came. So I want to appeal to that.

[C]

Melissa, then what do you think? Looking at it from the outside, how optimistic would you be?

[B]

I'm optimistic we're going to move things forward way faster than I thought we would even five or seven years ago. There's too many pressures on the system that make some kind of movement forward, make a lot of sense. And you know me, Ed, I'm a data and analytical brain engineer in my heart. So, you know, I'm looking at all the pressures in the system saying, all right, there's so many reasons why forward movement makes sense. I bet we will. Now, in terms of what that looks like, I think it will take on a different form than any of my energy systems models may have been able to model over the years. So we'll see.

[C]

It's certainly a hugely important debate to follow, and we are going to be following it closely on the energy gang as things unfold over the coming year or however long it takes. Scott, I hope you'll come back to talk to us again about it as things develop. Come back and celebrate, maybe take the victory lap once it has been signed into law. For now, though, we are going to leave it there. It's been great talking to you both. Many thanks, Melissa.

[B]

Yeah. Good seeing you, Ed. Scott, it was really nice to have the conversation today.

[A]

Thank you, Melissa. Thank you, Ed. And wish us well.

[C]

We certainly do that. Well, yeah, you do as well, don't you, Melissa? I think we both do.

[B]

Like, we work in energy, we want to figure this all out. It's a complicated mix of things we do. We want to figure it out.

[C]

As I say, thanks very much indeed to both of you. Many thanks to our producers, Molly Bowen and Toby Biggins Gilchrist. And above all, as ever, many thanks to all of you for listening. We really do value your feedback, so please keep that coming and we'll be back very soon with all the latest news and views on the future of energy. Until then, goodbye.