On the recordMarch 30, 2023
There is a way to speed up and deal with the backlog. We, Democrats, in the Inflation Reduction Act fought for and included $1 billion to deal specifically with NEPA and the review process to bring it up to capacity and staff it. The same can be done for the other agencies that do species reviews, marine reviews, et cetera. It can be done and it needs to be done by the government. I think the Federal Government should have the sole responsibility to conduct unbiased environmental reviews. That would deal with the backlog. With the $1 billion under NEPA, we will reach that 2-year threshold that the Trump administration wanted, that the Republican majority wanted, and Senators, including Manchin, wanted. We can do the same with the other agencies as well. It is about backlog. It is not about continuing a self-fulfilling prophesy. The prophesy has been to starve these departments so that you can claim that things are not being done in a timely fashion. This is an opportunity. The President has recommended it in his budget to fully allow the transfer of money from the IRA to this review process with other agencies, not just NEPA. I think this amendment is redundant in the sense that we establish a dependency on outside funding from potential claimants to leases and permits within our Federal lands and waters and depend on them to be able to deal with that backlog. If we are going to speed this up, let's do it correctly.…
