On the recordMarch 27, 2025
I don't know what the current timeline is, but I know it has taken years when it should take months. We know what a geothermal power plant looks like. We know how to do it in a way that is environmentally sensitive. We are just taking time and money to get to that end point that we already know we are headed to. Mr. LaMALFA. Indeed, as another example, there was a copper mine--it is not the same as a geothermal power plant, but one particular one in the West took 29 years to permit. When you are talking about any kind of thing that is moving forward on self-sufficiency in minerals or energy dominance that the U.S. needs to have, it takes a decade or more, in many cases, to get this done. A desalination plant in southern California, along the coast--I think out of Huntington Beach; the Poseidon project it was called. They fought for two decades to try to get a desalination plant. We can't build water storage in California, it seems, or other areas, so everybody says, ``Desal, we can use the Pacific Ocean,'' until you try to permit it. They fought for 20 years to work through the permit process and jumped through every hoop, like what requirement will make them happy to take care of the brine, the landscape itself. After all that time, they were still denied by the California Coastal Commission and others to be able to do that. Permitting does need to be reformed, not thrown away, because we want to have a process where people can have a say and a look at what is happening.…
