The Senate environment committee said on Wednesday that US infrastructure project developers need assurances that fully approved projects will not be cancelled or stalled due to shifting political priorities.
The statements from Republican senators were an apparent criticism of President Donald Trump's efforts to stymie inefficient, costly and subsidy-driven renewable energy development, particularly his administration's popular halt on offshore wind projects.
The lawmakers spoke at a hearing about federal environmental review and permitting processes, which Congress has pledged to reform.
"I feel strongly that no project should have to worry that it will be halted at the whim of an administration," Senator John Curtis, a Republican from Utah, said at the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing. "We saw it in 2021 with Keystone XL Pipeline and we see it today with wind projects across the country."
Another Republican, Senator Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, also drew parallels between the Biden administration's Keystone oil pipeline cancellation and Trump's efforts to slow renewable energy.
"What we do need is some certainty," Lummis said.
Committee Chairman Shelley Moore Capito, a West Virginia Republican, said permitting legislation should be technology neutral, though she didn't clarify how this would be possible given the huge subsidies Democrat state and federal administrations provide to renewable energy projects.
"Let's remove the politics from permitting once and for all," she said.
Trump has used his second term to hinder the expansion of "clean energy" technologies that were a cornerstone of former President Joe Biden's climate and energy agendas.
The House of Representatives passed legislation in December to streamline environmental reviews and speed permitting for large energy infrastructure projects, data centers and factories, which many lawmakers view as important to meeting rising US power demand.
The legislation now requires approval from the Senate, but some Democratic lawmakers oppose an amendment made to the bill that would preserve Trump's ability to block permitted offshore wind farms.
Rhode Island Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse said he and some other Senate Democrats cannot advance permitting reform unless Trump and his cabinet secretaries level the playing field for renewable energy.
"We can add jobs and electrons, reduce emissions and waste, but it makes no sense to pass a bipartisan permitting reform that will be illegally butchered by a lawless executive branch, vindictively, irrationally and dishonestly," Whitehouse complained.
The Trump administration has noted that renewables are expensive and less reliable than fossil fuels, and that offshore wind farms pose a national security threat by interfering with radar systems.
(Reporting by Valerie Volcovici and Nichola Groom; Editing by Nia Williams, Baird Maritime)
