Do Trump’s Attacks on Renewables Make a Permitting Deal Pointless?

Today’s chat is with House Natural Resources ranking member Jared Huffman, the top Democrat on the most important committee for land use in the House of Representatives. This week, Huffman and other Democrats spoke out against efforts by the Trump administration to lay off staff at four publicly backed power grid planners and operators known as Power Marketing Administrators, or PMAs. This led me to ask Huffman’s office if I could chat with the congressman about the eroding independence of these historically insulated government bodies, as well as permitting staff.

Our conversation left me feeling mostly hopeless on solutions coming anytime soon, with a dash of gratitude that at least someone in government cares about this.

Here’s an edited transcript of our conversation:

Walk me through how, in the minority, you’re trying to deal with the politicization of and disruption to ordinarily independent agencies and entities that operate our government?

We don’t have the tools I’d like, but we’re not entirely powerless. We have our public platforms and communication opportunities. And our votes are still needed from time to time, even in a Republican Congress. So it’s a combination of that and working with outside litigants where we can and trying our best to drive public opinion. That’s pretty much the toolbox.

Do you envision this issue — given how much trouble there was getting folks to appreciate the IRA — being something that really gets the public’s attention?

PMAs are pretty abstract for most Americans. I don’t know that we are going to get them to understand what all of these entities do or how they’re funded or why they’re important. But this clown car exercise with DOGE doing a ready-set-aim exercise with the PMAs could be a learning moment.

What do you mean by that?

These guys are running roughshod through a whole bunch of federal agencies that they don’t even really understand, and they’re pretending to cut things and lay off people in some cases that don’t even affect the federal treasury or deficit. So the levels of ignorance and recklessness are stunning and could help us explain to the American people what’s wrong with this out of control process.

What are you hearing in terms of how the government is interacting with energy developers, especially those in renewables?

I hear a lot of concern and confusion. I don’t know that this PMA episode is particularly revealing in terms of where we’re going with energy development and the grid. But it’s definitely a cautionary tale about allowing a bunch of bozos in hoodies to have the authority to cut budgets they don’t understand.

But with respect to the PMAs, those are usually independent. Do you or anyone you speak to have concern about this independence eroding and it trickling down to renewables?

Oh, of course I am concerned about that. But I am concerned about that across the spectrum of independent agencies. From the DOJ to the FTC to the SEC to the Postal Service and everything else. This is fundamentally a bad idea to try to bring every entity on the federal org chart under the direct authority of Donald Trump.

Another place we’ve seen staff shakeup is in environmental agencies tasked with permitting projects.

You and other lawmakers gave agencies more money to hire staff to process permits and my reporting has revealed how that money and staff time has been impacted by Trump’s return to the White House. Walk me through how you see the situation with permitting, staff and the layoffs?

What we did was real permitting reform. What they want to do is talk about permitting reform and then actually getting rid of environmental laws. So you’re going to see them do things — they’ve already started — that actually slow down permitting and environmental reviews. And this is something they claim they care about. It’s all in service of a bigger objective: to clear away environmental laws so things like fossil fuel development don’t even have to get permits. They just happen.

Do you think we’re about to be in a world where fossil fuel permits flow from the federal agencies like water but renewables struggle to get their go-aheads?

I think that’s clearly where they want to go.

Does that make it harder to pass legislation to deal with the permitting process?

I think it makes it pointless. To have an intelligent conversation about permitting reform when these guys won’t even follow legislation — they won’t even keep the things we have already done that are achieving permitting reform.

If you were talking to an energy executive, one of these renewables developers who still wants to build projects, what would you say to them?

I’d say, work with state and local governments.