John Hoeven: “I join my colleagues today to discuss the need to reform our Nation's broken Federal permitting process. Today, it often…”

“I join my colleagues today to discuss the need to reform our Nation's broken Federal permitting process. Today, it often takes longer to navigate the Federal permitting process than it does to actually construct a project. It currently takes, on average, 4\1/2\ years or more to complete an environmental impact statement, or EIS. For a quarter of projects, it can take 6 years or more to complete an environmental impact statement. That is because some radical environmental groups have really weaponized the National Environmental Policy Act, NEPA, and they are exploiting what has become a more and more opaque and convoluted Federal permitting process. This uncertainty not only drives up the cost of future projects, it is being applied to projects currently permitted in good faith. Take, for instance, the Dakota Access Pipeline, which has been operating safely for nearly 6 years in its transporting of over a half a million barrels of crude oil per day from North Dakota--light sweet crude--and from the Fort Berthold Reservation and the Three Affiliated Tribes. It takes it to market, and it is used in our country to fuel our economy. The Army Corps held 389 meetings, conferred with more than 55 Tribes, and completed a 1,261-page environmental assessment before the pipeline went into operation.…”