Illustration: Natalie Peeples/Axios
Republicans are looking at ways to get permitting into a reconciliation bill if lawmakers don't strike a deal in the lame duck.
Why it matters: It's a long shot to get major changes to environmental laws past the Senate parliamentarian in reconciliation.
- But we're going to see Republicans get creative, since the budgetary process is currently the only option to bypass the filibuster.
Driving the news: "We think we have more leeway [in reconciliation] than folks might think we have," House Natural Resources Chair Bruce Westerman told Axios.
- He said Republicans are "looking very closely at things the Senate parliamentarian let go in the Inflation Reduction Act."
- Generally, provisions of a reconciliation bill must directly impact federal spending or revenue.
- But Democrats were able to amend the Clean Air Act in the IRA to, among other things, explicitly define greenhouse gas emissions as a pollutant.
Between the lines: Westerman said the Congressional Budget Office has "already established that there's a budget nexus with permitting reform" when it looked at H.R. 1, the GOP's mega energy bill.
- Although CBO didn't spell out the impacts of H.R. 1's NEPA provisions, it did note that "interactions among the bill's provisions could generate receipts from new projects or shift receipts that CBO currently anticipates will be realized after 2033 into the later years of the 10-year projection window."
- Still, Sen. Joe Manchin seemed doubtful this bid would work: "The reason we couldn't do it before" is because it didn't have a budgetary implication, he told Axios.
The big picture: Westerman and Manchin both say they still want to pass a permitting overhaul this year.
