Lighting up the darkness and giving gifts to children are beloved parts of most of our winter holiday traditions. We have the opportunity to give a collective gift of clean, reliable, and affordable light and power to all the children in our country.

Right now, the slow and outdated permitting process means that building out more reliable and cleaner forms of energy happens at a snail’s pace. Some clean energy infrastructure — such as transmission lines — can take up to a decade to be greenlighted and built.

As a consequence, Americans are stuck with archaic, hazardous  and polluting energy sources,  while better clean energy options are stalled and delayed. Energy permitting reform would give our children and our children’s children the critical energy infrastructure for a brighter future.

Many of us are vexed by the rising costs of the energy to run our homes, cars and businesses. Reliability and safety are also an issue. The fear of power outages in our sweltering summer or freezing winter is real.  Some of our most devastating wildfires have been due to downed power lines.

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Balancing Energy Needs and Pollution Reduction

Our energy needs are increasing and so is our desire to reduce the pollution that harms the lungs of family and friends. That same pollution traps heat like a blanket around the globe, intensifying weather patterns. In our Valley, this means things like more super hot days with damage to crops, increased cases of heat stroke, more mosquitoes and drought, bigger and faster wildfires, and months of limited enjoyment of outdoor activity. In other areas, people are dealing with  horrible flooding and powerful hurricanes.

Without permitting reform to speed up our clean energy deployment, we’ll miss out on about half of the potential carbon pollution cuts from the Inflation Reduction Act. Even though the IRA was passed by Democrats, studies show that many of the benefits of this legislation, such as job creation  are occurring in typically more conservative parts of the country. Thus there is hope that this  historic legislation has become popular enough across party lines to avoid the threat that it will be overturned by the incoming administration.

Since it was signed into law, private sector companies have announced more than $360 billion in investment across nearly 600 clean energy projects that will create nearly 313,000 new jobs, according to Climate Power.

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Bipartisan Support for Bill

Unfortunately, the Energy Permitting Act of 2024  did not get included in an end of the year legislative package as some concerned citizens like me, had hoped.

While this bill wasn’t perfect (it did include some fossil fuel provisions), renewable energy projects stood to benefit the most from reforms. Modeling from the most trusted climate and energy modelers showed the bill could reduce America’s climate pollution as much as 25% by 2050, making it a significant step toward our climate goals.

Many trusted climate champions in Congress supported the bill. And I was happy to see that Rep. Jim Costa (D-Fresno) signed an endorsement from the Blue Dog Coalition of moderate Democrats. The Climate Solutions Caucus, with 30 Democrats and 30 Republicans, including Rep. David Valadao (R-Kings County), also supported the bill.

A Call to Action

Congress still has an opportunity to ensure permitting reform protects community input, upholds environmental laws, and ensures faster clean energy deployment.

Maybe this week, after helping your kids write their Dear Santa wish lists or enjoying your neighbors’ decorations, your family could take a few minutes to give a gift to our entire community by calling or emailing  your member of Congress to ask them to support energy permitting reform the coming year. You can find your representative at House.gov.

About the Author

Andrea Farber De Zubiria is the leader of Citizens’ Climate Lobby Fresno, the local chapter of a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to helping ordinary citizens build the political will for climate solutions.

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