The U.S. Senate’s top rule-keeper just threw a wrench into Republican plans to speed up fossil fuel development. Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough has ruled that key provisions in the sweeping OBBB Act—aimed at fast-tracking oil, gas, and mining projects—can’t bypass environmental review unless they clear a 60-vote threshold.
That means GOP efforts to use budget reconciliation to skirt the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) are dead on arrival unless they gain bipartisan support. The parliamentarian flagged several provisions as violations of the Byrd Rule, which bars non-budget items from being stuffed into budget bills. Among them: language declaring offshore oil and gas projects automatically compliant with NEPA, an attempt to greenlight a mining road in Alaska, and a provision allowing gas exporters to simply pay their way into a “national interest” designation.
Also on the chopping block: a clause that would’ve required the Interior Department to issue leases within 90 days and one that restricted its ability to lower renewable energy fees. All must now face regular legislative scrutiny—with filibuster-proof majorities.
The ruling arrives just weeks after the Supreme Court narrowed the scope of NEPA itself, siding unanimously with the Uinta Basin Railway project. That decision, written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, stressed that NEPA is “a procedural cross-check, not a substantive roadblock.”
Yet this week’s ruling is a reminder: Congress still has to play by the rules when rewriting environmental law.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune downplayed the setback, calling it part of the “process.” But Democrats, led by Senator Jeff Merkley, are sharpening their knives: “Democrats will not stand idly by while Republicans attempt to circumvent the rules of reconciliation in order to sell off public lands to fund tax breaks for billionaires.”
The message is clear: Fast-tracking fossil fuel development isn’t as easy as slipping a few lines into a megabill.
By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com
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