Energy Infrastructure is one of the topics essentially absent from the Congressional agenda at the moment, with the exception of continuing efforts to pass a Keystone XL bill. As you recall, the last bill successfully passed the House and Senate, only to be vetoed by President. It ultimately died in the Senate where it lacked the votes to override said veto.
Topics: Oil & Energy Magazine, Energy Infrastructure, Congress
Tuesday the House passed bipartisan legislation to speed up the approval process for cross-border energy projects (ie Keystone XL), despite a promised veto from President Obama. The bill is known as the “North American Energy Infrastructure Act”, featuring 12 Republican and 8 Democratic co-sponsors. If it passed the Senate, it would establish by law that projects be granted or denied approval within 120 days of the Environmental Impact Study, and more significantly, it would remove the need for Presidential Approval.
Technically the bill doesn’t apply to Keystone XL, because the applications and environmental impact studies are already completed for that proposed project. However, that’s obviously the most glaring example of the need to speed up the process, and probably the impetus for the bill’s submission in the first place. In theory, TransCanada could resubmit their application and be subject to the speedier process. (A motion to prevent TransCanada from resubmitting should the bill pass was handily shut down by a wide margin.)
Topics: Energy Independence, Keystone XL, Energy Infrastructure, Congress, TransCanada, Environmental Impact Study