As the fight over infrastructure permitting resurfaces on Capitol Hill, one California Democrat is sticking his neck out in the name of climate change. His ideas are controversial — even within his own party. Rep. Scott Peters, who represents San Diego, wants to open up a landmark law many Democrats and greens consider sacrosanct: the National Environmental Policy Act of 1970, which requires federal agencies to analyze the impacts of their actions before any project can proceed. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) put NEPA changes on the table last year in his push to speed up infrastructure projects — triggering a debate about the balance between environmental protection and the need to move quickly. Peters is one of the few other Democrats willing to publicly entertain the idea of opening up the law. “The boogeyman we always heard about is, ‘Oh, you’re trying to change NEPA,’” Peters said. “And yeah, I’m trying to change NEPA. If it keeps us from saving the planet? Yeah.” Peters’ argument also comes as Democrats, climate hawks and the White House urge action to ensure clean energy investments in the Inflation Reduction Act come to fruition. Some also worry that, without changes to the permitting process, implementation of the massive climate spending package could be delayed, becoming a political liability for Democrats ahead of 2024. We sat down with Peters to learn more about his burgeoning role as dealmaker — and the political risks he is willing to take. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. I’d love to start by hearing what your philosophy is around climate issues and where you fall on the ideological spectrum about what we need to do to address the climate crisis and the warming planet. The thing that I recognize about being a trial lawyer and being in local government is that, every time there’s conflict, you have to manage, and that change makes people nervous, and sometimes they’ll grumble. And the amount of change we have to make to deal with climate is radical. I don’t think people appreciate it. People don’t appreciate that it’s not just the quantity of change, but it is just the nature of rethinking how we do stuff to respond to what everyone says is a crisis. The grid took 150 years to build. We have to build one just as big in 15 years, and we have to build another one 15 years after that. And we are incapable of doing that today because of all the process we have. So I am going to sound like the biggest deregulator in the world, because I don’t think we can follow the same process we’ve gotten used to literally over 52 years and make the numbers that are going to support the decarbonization we say we want. How do you make Democrats comfortable with that? I think you have to drive the facts. That’s it. When you say to people, we’re going to lose 80 percent of the [Inflation Reduction Act] – putting the money aside, it’s not an accomplishment until you get it into the ground. If you don’t do it in time, you’re going to lose 80 percent of the climate benefit of that. How much do you think Democrats’ resistance to reopening NEPA has to do with distrust across the aisle, that their need to keep NEPA closed is out of this fear Republicans just want to drill everywhere without discrimination? I think that’s part of it, but I also just think people have this biblical sense about the 1970s environmental laws. We’ve been told often, ‘I don’t want to reopen the Clean Water Act, just on principle, because I don’t know what will happen to it.’ They’re nervous about taking this vase off the shelf. I always just say that these laws aren’t from Moses, they’re not on tablets, and they’re created by people no smarter or better-looking than us. We were called on to meet the moment with the laws that fit today. If you accept the challenge of climate change, and you accept we have to follow the science, it is inevitable that you will accept the fact that we have to change these processes. What conversations are happening right now around permitting reform, and what do you think it’s going to take to get a coalition together to make that happen? What I would envision is that [House Natural Resources Committee Chair] Bruce [Westerman (R-Ark.)] and I, and some other people, might come up with a product. The issue for Democrats, in the past, is that [Republicans] would do NEPA reform with two-year timelines and one agency designated as the lead, and then [Republicans] would add something like, ‘you can’t talk about the social cost of carbon,’ so that no one can vote for it. And it’s stupid. So first of all, they gotta stop that. They can’t put these poison pills in. But we’ve got to come up with what we think would work.
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