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(Reuters Breakingviews) – Presidential elections are fought on the issues that divide Democrats and Republicans. They also tend to sideline the issues on which they agree. Priorities shift; partisans holding out for a decisive electoral result await the chance to strike a harder bargain.
That crimps fixes for workaday issues – like current bipartisan proposals on everything from permitting reform to banking access for cannabis producers – that are nonetheless hugely consequential.
Take, for instance, power lines. Energy projects awaiting a spot to connect to the electrical grid represent more gigawatts of generating capacity than the entire U.S. power fleet right now. The problem is worsening – wait times more than doubled since 2008, according to Evercore – and especially hurts the green transition. Some 94% of pending projects at 2023’s end were for zero-carbon power, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found.
There’s a fix agreed on paper: Senator Joe Manchin, an independent who continues to vote with Democrats, and Republican John Barrasso’s thrillingly titled Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024. Like any negotiation, it involves trade-offs: measures to boost power transmission will, by dint of the make-up of languishing projects, benefit renewables. Yet the bill also encourages fossil-fuel development, earning opposition from environmental groups and some Democrats eyeing a no-compromise ideal. Meanwhile, partisans in the House of Representatives are taking dueling approaches as yet unreconciled with the nascent Senate bill. Chuck Schumer, who leads the Senate’s Democratic majority, said it will be “virtually impossible” to wrap all this up before November’s election, even though the bill sailed through committee on a 15-4 vote on July 31.
There’s a real cost to delay. A 2022 Princeton study estimates around 80% of emissions reductions from President Joe Biden’s signature climate law depend on solving this exact issue. Power interconnection growth hovers around 1% annually, less than half the needed pace, according to the study.
Congress is sitting on other largely-agreed-upon legislation with no clear path to fruition. An increased tax break for parents overwhelmingly passed the House, but was blocked by Republicans in the Senate. A bill ensuring much-needed access to banking services for cannabis businesses in states where they are legal has deep support among both Republicans and Democrats and yet, year after year, fails to cross the finish line.
Of course, in an election season, compromise and comity don’t make for good campaign slogans. In the current especially unpredictable contest, with polls swinging between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, there’s a kind of logic to waiting to see how power shifts. In the meantime, a lot of half-loaves are getting stale on the table.
U.S. Senators Joe Manchin and John Barrasso unveiled legislation on July 22, entitled the Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024, that in part aims to reduce waiting times for energy infrastructure projects seeking to connect to the grid. The bill advanced out of a committee led by the senators on a 15-4 bipartisan vote on July 31.
However, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has cast doubt on the legislation’s chances of passing prior to the 2024 election, saying that timeline would be “virtually impossible.”
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