WASHINGTON — States would be free to develop energy resources on federal lands within their borders, a series of Trump-era regulations would be set into law and a West Virginia pipeline would be approved under a Republican permitting bill that adds a wrinkle to Democrats’ internal squabble over the same issues.
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., the top GOP member on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, released the bill Monday, inching out her home-state peer Sen. Joe Manchin III, D-W.Va., who is expected to unveil a separate permitting proposal any day.
Capito said her bill, which has 38 other Republican co-sponsors, would “provide regulatory certainty to states, expedite permitting and review processes, codify substantive environmental regulatory reforms, and expedite permitting of the critically important Mountain Valley Pipeline.”
