Politico, The Wall Street Journal, and E&E News quoted McGuireWoods partner and McGuireWoods Consulting senior advisor Bernard McNamee in recent stories on U.S. energy policy, including infrastructure permitting reforms the U.S. Senate will consider this fall.
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., disclosed the agreement to pursue permitting reforms in a July 27, 2022, statement announcing a separate agreement on an economic policy package.
In a July 29 story published in Politico Pro Energy, McNamee, a former commissioner on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, said lawmakers should consider reforming the review process dictated by the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA).
“If America is to be [a] nation of builders again, Senator Manchin should insist that NEPA reviews no longer be weaponized by ending the ability to kill a project due to indirect or cumulative effects,” McNamee said.
The Wall Street Journal included comments from McNamee in an Aug. 1 article about the factors behind high prices and limited supplies of oil and gas. “The crisis now is much worse than it was in the ’70s,” McNamee said. “Everyone is looking around, and no one seems to know what to do.”
In an Aug. 5 story in E&E News Energywire, McNamee said that, in some cases, water quality permits have been denied for “illegitimate purposes, or because the state doesn’t support the underlying project.”