Urge Congress accelerate deployment of new energy infrastructure

hcr35_02_AH

As Adopted by the House

136th
General Assembly

Regular
Session
H. C. R. No. 35

2025-2026

Representative
Lear

Cosponsors:
Representatives Hall, T., Johnson, King, Fischer, Mathews, A., Salvo,
Thomas, D., Williams, Bird, Claggett, Click, Daniels, Dovilla,
Ghanbari, Hiner, Holmes, Hoops, Klopfenstein, Lorenz, Mathews, T.,
McClain, Peterson, Pizzulli, Richardson, Ritter, Robb Blasdel,
Roemer, Schmidt, Stephens, Willis, Workman

A
c o n c u r r e n t R E S O L U T I O N

To
urge Congress to enact reforms to federal permitting policies to
accelerate deployment of new energy infrastructure.

BE
IT RESOLVED BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE STATE OF OHIO (THE
SENATE CONCURRING):

WHEREAS,
Ohio recognizes that abundant, resilient, and diversified domestic
energy production in the United States enhances American national
security, economic competitiveness, and energy independence; and

WHEREAS,
The excessively complex federal permitting and environmental review
processes that have built up around America's environmental laws,
including the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the
Endangered Species Act (ESA), the National Historic Preservation Act
(NHPA), Clean Water Act (CWA), and dozens of other federal
requirements, have grown to be so cumbersome that they often
unnecessarily slow or prevent the construction of essential new
energy infrastructure and therefore discourage domestic energy
production without advancing the laudable goals of these laws; and

WHEREAS,
Energy is produced in the United States at a much higher
environmental standard than is typically the case in the countries
from which energy is imported, so prevention of domestic energy
production undermines the goals of those very same environmental
laws; and

WHEREAS,
Delays caused by permitting inefficiencies inhibit the building of
all of the essential components of a low-cost, reliable, and modern
energy infrastructure that is needed to support economic
competitiveness, to enhance reliability and prevent blackouts, to
lower costs for consumers and businesses, and to achieve many of the
goals of America's environmental laws; and

WHEREAS,
After more than a decade of flat electricity demand, demand for
electricity in the United States is projected to dramatically
increase in the coming decades, requiring major increases in domestic
energy production and a more than doubling of the domestic
electricity transmission grid capacity; and

WHEREAS,
Regulatory barriers today mean that more than two thousand gigawatts
of energy production and storage, more than the entire current
American electricity capacity combined, are stuck in electricity
interconnection queues and the average amount of time to interconnect
new energy resources has nearly doubled from about two years to
nearly four years; and

WHEREAS,
The average time it takes to process an environmental impact
statement under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) for
major infrastructure projects has risen to an excessive length of
four and one-half years; and

WHEREAS,
The United States is highly reliant on China and other countries that
do not share our interests to mine and process critical minerals,
with demand for some of these minerals potentially growing by more
than forty times by 2040; and

WHEREAS,
Other developed nations that share our goals to protect the
environment while producing abundant energy resources, such as Canada
and Australia, have shown that they can permit new mines within two
to three years instead of nearly ten years, as is often the case in
the United States; and

WHEREAS,
Both linear infrastructure, such as pipelines and transmission lines,
as well as energy generation infrastructure all face extraordinary
and indefensible delays due to overlitigation, inappropriate blocking
of nationally important projects by unrepresentative and often
radical groups that hold those projects hostage, and excessive use of
our court system to hamstring worthy projects; and

WHEREAS,
Major delays in projects caused by inefficient permitting or
overlitigation can dramatically increase costs and make projects less
viable, costing consumers, businesses, and taxpayers money and making
our energy system less reliable; and

WHEREAS,
Unnecessary permitting and regulatory delays also increase American
dependence on energy produced by foreign dictators and authoritarian
regimes; and

WHEREAS,
Unnecessary permitting delays limit investments made in modernizing
our nation's infrastructure that would result in a more efficient
energy system with reduced emissions and environmental impact; and

WHEREAS,
Overlapping federal permitting requirements lack the flexibility to
allow for efforts that reflect the spirit and intent of traditional
environmental laws by protecting human health and the environment
instead of procedural compliance with decades-old regulation; and

WHEREAS,
Failure to reform federal permitting laws is already resulting in
fewer jobs, reduced security, and higher prices for Americans without
providing additional benefits for the environment; and

WHEREAS,
Failing to reform these laws in the coming months will result in even
greater limitations on our energy infrastructure, costing even more
American jobs while raising costs for consumers and businesses and
leaving us vulnerable to unreliability, blackouts, and the resulting
severe harm to the American people; now therefore be it

RESOLVED,
That we, the members of the 136th General Assembly of the State of
Ohio, urge federal legislators to work in good faith to enact
legislation that reforms federal permitting and environmental review
processes to promote economic and environmental stewardship by
expediting the deployment of modern energy infrastructure; and be it
further

RESOLVED,
That these reforms should enable faster and lower-cost construction
of modern energy infrastructure of all kinds, without prejudice,
including by considering steps to limit excessive use of judicial
processes to slow projects inappropriately, prevent inappropriate
usage of the Clean Water Act and other laws to hamstring the lawful
building of linear energy infrastructure, such as pipelines and
transmission lines, enact reforms to plan, permit, and pay for the
necessary build-out of regional and interregional electricity
transmission infrastructure to support a more reliable energy grid
that lowers costs for consumers and businesses, enable the domestic
build-out of the full array of energy technologies essential to a
modern system, including all affordable energy resources, and all
other traditional and emerging sources needed to meet diverse energy
demands; and be it further

RESOLVED,
That these legislative reforms should also strive to ensure
accountability for federal agencies conducting permitting and
environmental review processes, including better data and more
aggressive timelines for projects at all levels of environmental
review, whether environmental impact statements, environmental
assessments, or categorically excluded projects under NEPA; and be it
further

RESOLVED,
That these legislative reforms must be accompanied by a redoubling of
efforts to streamline federal regulations to support the efficient
building of new energy infrastructure; and be it further

RESOLVED,
That failure to act to update our federal permitting system to
support building new energy infrastructure in a sustainable and
effective manner will further harm consumers, workers, and
businesses, while making our country less competitive and more
vulnerable; and be it further

RESOLVED,
That Congress must act with urgency in the coming months to fix our
broken permitting system, and we are grateful to the members of
Ohio's Congressional Delegation, including both United States
Senators, for their support and prioritization of a federal
permitting reform deal; and be it further

RESOLVED,
That the Clerk of the House of Representatives transmit duly
authenticated copies of this resolution to the President Pro Tempore
of the United States Senate, the Speaker of the United States House
of Representatives, and the members of Ohio's Congressional
Delegation.