CERAWEEK: Gas pipeline groups see glimmers of hope for permitting reform in 2026

The perennial topic of permitting reform is once again front of mind for gas pipeline operators and advocates, who are holding out hope that a bipartisan reform bill could be passed next year.

"Clearly the goal has to be permitting reform passed by Congress," Tim Ryan, co-chair of pro-gas group Natural Allies for a Clean Energy Future, said in an interview at CERAWeek by S&P Global. "The new administration will likely test the limits of what is possible with executive orders, but then it gets caught up in court, people are suing and you're not sure, you're still kind of stuck," said Ryan, a former Democratic representative for Ohio.

Some delegates at CERAWeek were skeptical about permitting reform from Congress because of partisan antipathy, but Williams CEO Alan Armstrong said he was "a little more optimistic."

"I think we'll have enough moderate Democrat senators that really want to see the best for our country," Armstrong said at a press briefing. "I think they'll support permitting ... not just for pipelines, but for everything [including] power transmission." A reform bill would require 60 votes in the Senate, where Republicans currently hold a 53-47 majority.

"If they don't figure it out, then the Democrats in the Senate won't be able to release the billions of dollars from the IRA that are stuck because you can't get transmission lines," Ryan said. "So I think there's an incentive for them to do it," Ryan said. "And clearly, there's an incentive for the Republicans."

Budget reconciliation measures are expected to keep permitting reform on the back burner in 2025. "It's hard for me to think that it would happen this year, only because of other priorities that Congress is focused on," said Amy Andryszak, president and CEO of the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America.

After that, Andryszak sees a "six-month sweet spot" for permit reform. "I think there could be a real opportunity in the beginning of 2026... past reconciliation and before there's too much focus on the midterms."

Former Senator Joe Manchin, an Independent from West Virginia, led ultimately unsuccessful efforts for bipartisan reform in 2024 with Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming. That effort "came at a difficult time when, of course, Joe Manchin was a lame duck and on his way out of office," said Chris Treanor, Executive Director of Partnership to Address Global Emissions, another group promoting US natural gas.

"At the end of the day, there was not enough in there for the pipeline industry and for Republicans to put their full weight and support behind it, and then it was just an incredibly fraught time politically," Treanor said at the sidelines of the conference.

Bipartisan relations have not exactly eased in the first months of the second Trump administration.

"It's never easy in the political environment we live in now to have anything be bipartisan," said Treanor. "These executive orders that are coming out of the Trump administration certainly hurt the goodwill to move forward on bipartisan activities."

However, Treanor still sees hopes for permitting reform because there is "near universal agreement" that it is needed.

"For the last decade, there's been a very effective playbook to kill pipelines that's been used through numerous court challenges and protests and permitting challenges," Treanor said. "They've been successful in killing many pipelines, but those same exact tactics can just as easily be used to kill renewable projects and transmission projects. And so we're not seeing anything able to be built in the United States."