Lower Energy Costs Act
Floor Speech
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Mrs. GONZALEZ-COLON. Madam Chair, I rise in strong support of this bill because this legislation will restore and secure American energy independence.
I am especially supportive of this bill's provisions to modernize the NEPA process. Look how long it takes for many of the permits to actually be approved. It streamlines the Federal permitting process for all industries. These commonsense reforms will provide the necessary certainty so projects across the Nation are carried out in a timely manner without sacrificing our environmental standards which are the most robust in the world.
This will be critical for jurisdictions like mine in Puerto Rico, as we rebuild our public and energy infrastructure from recent natural disasters. Modernizing NEPA and the Federal permitting process--setting clear and reasonable timelines for agencies to conduct environmental reviews--will help simplify the process and reduce bureaucratic hurdles that too often have delayed our recovery process.
This bill will also establish a revenue-sharing structure for offshore wind leases in Federal waters. I was proud to work with Chairman Westerman during our committee markup to secure language clarifying that both coastal States and territories will receive revenues from any Federal offshore wind development off their coasts.
Specifically, this bill establishes a framework under which coastal States and territories will get funds for these offshore wind revenues. This bill further requires that States and territories invest these funds in coastal protection and resiliency projects, such as hurricane and flood protection, restoration, conservation, beach nourishment, and estuary management.
Therefore, this is not just an energy security and permitting reform package. This is also a coastal resiliency bill. For that reason, and knowing that we got billions of dollars in Federal funding for reconstructing the island, this is the process we need, this is the reform we actually need to get those funds in hand.
I thank and commend Majority Leader Scalise, Chair Westerman, Chair Rodgers and Chair Graves for their leadership and work on this important, powerful legislation.
I wish I could vote for this bill on the floor of the House today, but as a territory delegate I cannot, but I support this bill.
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