Nebraska Panhandle News

U.S. Senator Pete Ricketts of Nebraska engaged with infrastructure policy experts during a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing in Washington, D.C., focusing on the federal environmental review and permitting process. The discussion centered on potential reforms to streamline these processes while maintaining environmental protections.

During the hearing, Senator Ricketts expressed his views: “I believe we can make common-sense permitting reform to unleash projects for American energy, infrastructure, homebuilding, agriculture, all those sort of things—while protecting our environment. Permitting reform is about modernizing our regulatory system to ensure that we’re deploying projects efficiently, not about undercutting environmental standards."

He further elaborated on his experience as Governor in implementing Lean Six Sigma to streamline processes. "Regulatory delay for permitting infrastructure, energy and environmental projects is a hidden tax on Americans," he stated. Ricketts highlighted an example from his tenure where they reduced the steps required for issuing an air construction permit from 110 to 22 and decreased the time delay from 190 days to just 65 days.

The hearing aimed at exploring how similar reforms could be applied at the federal level to improve efficiency without compromising environmental regulations.