ICYMI: Heinrich Speaks at Semafor’s Principals Event on Permitting Reform

WASHINGTON — Last night, U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Ranking Member of the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, spoke at Semafor’s Principals Live – Powering America’s Future event in D.C. about permitting reform legislation in Congress.  

During the fireside chat moderated by Semafor’s Congressional Bureau Chief Burgess Everett, Heinrich emphasized the importance of passing bipartisan permitting legislation, the negative impacts of Trump’s actions to kill fully permitted projects, and how data centers play a role in permitting reform.  

  
On Working in a Bipartisan Fashion to Pass Permitting Reform 

“Has it been your experience that [Senator Mike Lee] is open to working with Democrats, and the Democratic Party on getting this done and trying to separate out the issues?” asked Semafor’s Congressional Bureau Chief Burgess Everett.   

Heinrich responded, “I’m optimistic that this is a space where... we're more aligned than maybe some of the other spaces. And so, I think we need to take advantage of that. And I'm a big believer, you know, do what you can, when you can, and don't wait for the perfect moment to suddenly manifest itself. We've got a lot of great foundational work that he and I were both part of in the previous Congress. And so let's build on that.” 

On Trump Canceling Energy Projects 

Burgess followed, “Yeah, and the dynamics, we were referencing this a little bit, have changed a bit, because the change in administrations.”  

Heinrich responded, “That's actually something that worries me more than him and I being in different places, on the policies. The dynamic where you have an administration that's willing to do things like issue stop work orders on fully permitted NEPA compliant projects, that's caused a lot of angst in my colleagues. And you know... we know things like the offshore wind — Empire and Revolution — and then there's literally a stack of red tape now on Doug Burgum's desk where, you know, he issued a directive that said for 68 different things that are usually handled at a very low level, that are very, you know, routine that they all have to go through his desk. And things like, right of ways for a solar or wind project, that's a recipe for not building things. And so we have to figure out a way to insert more certainty for both sides and for traditional and new clean generation. Like, how do we make it about whether you check the actual boxes that are relevant to the permit, and you insulate it from the politics?” 

Burgess asked, “Is that something you guys can legislate on, or is your concern that if you did legislate on — that the Trump administration wouldn’t follow the legislation or the law?”  

Heinrich responded, “Well that’s what the courts are for, right? I do think to the extent that we can create law that is more clear, that sets standards instead of allowing for one person's discretion.”  

On Permitting Legislation Negotiations 

Burgess asked, “Have you guys started like real discussions on what sort of legislation would come out of your committee, or are you waiting to see what happens in the House at this point?”  

Heinrich answered, “We’re not waiting on the House. I think both our teams are figuring out, you know, what's important to the two different caucuses on the committee, and, you know, I hope to be trading paper with Chairman Lee very soon.” 

Burgess followed, “Is the House bill a non-starter? 

Heinrich responded, “No, it's not a non-starter. I think anytime the House can move on things it's helpful for the overall dynamic. It's a very different... it's not an analogous permitting reform effort to what our committee is going to do because it's NEPA-centric.”  

Burgess asked, “Yours would be much broader, correct?” 

Heinrich answered, “It would, but the NEPA stuff also lives at EPW. It’s in a different committee, right? So, you know, speed is not necessarily analogous to the things that we would work on in the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, like geothermal that Chairman Lee talked about and transmission and those things.”  

On the Importance of Building New Energy Projects Faster  

Burgess followed, “We hear also a lot about this Abundance agenda for Democrats. Democrats want to build.”  

Heinrich answered, “I think that's a real dynamic. I mean, as a country, we need to be able to build big things. And to use an example that I worked on, I worked on a transmission project that I started working on with a developer when I got to the House of Representatives in 2009. It’s being energized right now. Seventeen years. That’s not functional. We need to do better than that. Now it's a great project, inserting, injecting, you know, tens of billions of dollars into the economies of New Mexico and Arizona. It's the largest clean energy project ever built in the Western Hemisphere. But come on, like capital, they talk about patient capital, nobody’s that patient.”  

Burgess asked, “Has your party been too resistant, historically to building things quickly?” 

Heinrich answered, “I think the times have changed, yes, and I think my party feels a sense of urgency that was not shared by a number of my colleagues in the past.” 

Burgess followed, “Are you having to convince them? Or is this happening naturally as they read the national politics?” 

Heinrich answered, “It’s kind of both. I would tell that story about that one power line in caucus in the past as a way to say, ‘No, we really do have to do this.’ And so we had those conversations hoping to get EPRA, the previous iteration, onto the floor, but it didn't quite get there. But we've also just seen a shift that people realize whether you want to solve for climate, or whether you want to solve for AI, I mean, we have to be able to build stuff. And you know, if you look at the pipeline right now of new generation onto the grid because of price, 95% of it is actually clean energy. And if that all gets hung up in the permitting process or on somebody's desk, like the Secretary of Interior, we're not going to be able to win the AI race. We just won't.” 

On Relationships with Administration Officials  

Burgess asked, “When you have a problem with Secretary of Interior, is he taking your calls?” 

Heinrich responded, “He takes my calls.”  

Burgess asked, “You still have a decent relationship with them? I know that’s been something... I feel like you’ve gone out of the way to maintain.” 

Heinrich responded, “I've tried very hard over the years, in both the first Trump administration and in this Trump administration, to try to maintain a relationship with the Secretary of Energy and Secretary of Interior, because my state has so many things that are directly related to those agencies, from our public lands to our national laboratories that are some of our biggest employers and do some of the most incredible government work that exists. I need to be able to pick up the phone and talk to those folks.”  

Burgess asked, “You mentioned the AI data centers. Is it difficult to get communities bought into those sprouting out around the country or are people ambivalent about this movement? What’s your take? What are people in your state telling you?”  

Heinrich answered, “I think that a lot of AI developers are not experienced in this state, and they're kind of where transmission projects were twenty years ago – they're making a lot of mistakes out of the gate. And so I actually do think that there's a way to do this that does not generate the kind of backlash that we're starting to see in a number of different states, but it requires things, you know, and I'll talk for a moment about a place I think that Chairman Lee and I very much agree is that those AI, large loads generally should pay their own freight. They should not be asking some community to subsidize their electricity. So if you know, if that's step one, if you screw that up out of the gate, people are going to turn against you. And then there are things like water consumption that are really acute in states like Arizona and Nevada.”  

Burgess asked, “Senator Lee says he’s talked to his leadership, they seem onboard with prioritizing this. Where do things stand in the Democratic caucus, because as you know, these things are hard. People want to fight Trump. Now this may not have anything to do with Trump, but sometimes that could just mean blocking legislation that Republicans support.”   

Henrich answered, “I think the leadership in my caucus is very interested in getting this done, and Sheldon Whitehouse and myself have had regular meetings with our leadership and with the caucus members that are interested in this space as well.”  

Burgess asked, “How do you handle sensitivities of making big changes in environmental policy here? Are there red lines for you that you will not touch?”  

Heinrich answered, “So I think we need to get to yes or no a lot faster. But that doesn't mean you, like, lower the standard. It just means that the process gets you to an outcome. Sometimes the outcome is no for good reason, but you shouldn't have to invest 10 years of effort to get no. You need to know earlier in the process. And one of the things that I found very frustrating in the course of working for well over a decade on a route for transmission line, and getting that right, is that the federal family does not always work well together. And you can have one agency hang up a project that nine other agencies think is the right answer, and so that takes leadership in the administration to do both concurrent processing, but also have somebody who can say no, this is going to be a no or it's going to be a yes, but we're not going to give a veto authority to every single agency. They need to tell you, like, if not here, that where?”