Trump-approved energy projects at risk of sudden death by next hostile president

President Donald Trump’s push to fast-track energy and infrastructure projects could be undercut by an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) veto authority that allows the agency to block projects even after permits are issued.

EPA’s veto authority stems from Section 404(c) of the Clean Water Act , which allows the agency to block or limit where dredged or fill material can be dumped if it determines the disposal could cause "unacceptable adverse effects." But the law sets no explicit time limit on that authority, leaving the door open to both preemptive and retroactive vetoes.

And it has already been put to the test.

In 2011, the agency used the provision to block disposal sites for Mingo Logan Coal Co.’s Spruce No.

1 mine in West Virginia , four years after the Army Corps of Engineers had issued a permit.

The dispute ultimately reached a federal appeals court, which ruled in EPA’s favor.

TRUMP’S REINDUSTRIALIZATION AGENDA FACES ITS BIGGEST HURDLE — AMERICANS Myron Ebell, a senior advisor to the Fix the EPA Veto Coalition, said the statute gives EPA broad authority to veto or revoke permits even after the Army Corps of Engineers has issued them, potentially putting projects already under construction at risk under future administrations.

"The environmental movement and the climate movement groups are focused on anything related to fossil fuels, and so any project that is likely to become controversial and political that they can make — that these groups can make politically controversial — would then seem to me to be, have the threat of a veto, and that would, I think, that would just drive away investors and companies from all these projects," Ebell said.

"So that's why we want to focus the administration's attention on this problem that could undo all of the good work that they're doing to speed up permitting," said Ebell, who headed the EPA transition team before Trump’s first administration.

The coalition, which consists of several state energy business groups, wants Congress to change the law but is also pressing the Trump administration to enact an EPA rule limiting when the agency may exercise its veto authority.

GORSUCH SUGGESTS SUPREME COURT'S TRUMP RULING IS OPENING MOVE AGAINST ADMINISTRATIVE STATE "The way to improve the situation is to get the EPA to put some sideboards and some constraints on the provision, and that would not solve the problem because a future administration could undo that rule, but it takes time to undo a rule," Ebell said.

Congress is also considering a more permanent solution.

Last December, the House passed the PERMIT Act, which would limit when EPA can use its Section 404(c) veto power.