When approved projects can still be halted, investors price political risk into energy, housing, and transportation costs.
• H.R. 7329 would protect fully permitted energy projects.
• Revolution Wind was halted after major construction progress.
• A pipeline approval was later reversed.
• PJM has 200,000 MW waiting in the grid queue.
• Permit risk can raise bills for households.
Lawmakers discuss permitting certainty at Energy Imperatives Summit.
At the Energy Imperatives Summit Day 2, lawmakers, energy executives, and grid officials kept returning to the same infrastructure problem. The United States can approve a project, attract private capital, begin construction, and still leave the final outcome exposed to political reversal, agency delay, or court action.
That is the pocket veto problem. It is not always a formal rejection. It can be a stop-work order, a delayed authorization, a vacated certificate, or a legal challenge that resets the risk after capital has already moved. For investors, that uncertainty becomes part of the price of building in America. For households, it can show up later in energy bills, housing costs, transportation costs, and slower infrastructure delivery.
Permitting debate usually focuses on speed. Agencies take too long to say yes, so reformers argue for shorter timelines and faster reviews. That still matters, but it is not the full problem. The deeper issue is whether a lawful yes still means anything once the permit is granted.
One bill targets permit uncertainty. Created via Gemini.
Fighting for Reliable Energy and Ending Doubt for Open Markets Act, known as the FREEDOM Act, was introduced as H.R. 7329 on February 3, 2026. The bill would streamline federal leasing and permitting, clarify federal authorization requirements, create enforceable timelines, limit federal actions that halt fully permitted projects, and establish a de-risking compensation program.
Rep. Josh Harder, U.S. Representative from California
Rep. Josh Harder described the purpose of the FREEDOM Act in direct terms.
“The Freedom Act is all about trying to get the politics out of permitting”
That statement shows why the bill matters beyond one energy source. Infrastructure projects need long planning windows, large upfront capital, and stable legal expectations. If a permit can be treated as temporary after years of review, then investors have to treat every approval as conditional. That makes the permit less like a finish line and more like another stage of uncertainty.
The Revolution Wind project shows how permit uncertainty can hit after a project is already far into construction. The offshore wind project was designed for 704 megawatts (MW) of capacity and planned to serve Rhode Island and Connecticut. It had already moved through federal review before the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) issued an August 22, 2025 Director’s Order halting ongoing activities on the outer continental shelf.
BOEM said the order was issued to address concerns under review by the Department of the Interior (DOI) and to protect national security interests, prevent interference with other ocean uses, and ensure compliance with offshore wind regulations. DOI later announced a broader December 22, 2025 pause on several offshore wind leases, including Revolution Wind, citing national security risks identified in classified reports.
45 of 65 turbines built before halt order. Created via Gemini.
The timing made the order especially important for infrastructure finance. Ørsted said the project was 80% complete, with all offshore foundations installed and 45 of 65 wind turbines installed when the stop-work order arrived.
Rep. Scott Peters, U.S. Representative from California
Rep. Scott Peters described the permit-certainty problem this way.
“What we saw with Revolution Wind, pretty shocking.”
The point is not whether offshore wind should receive special treatment. The point is whether a project that has cleared review and entered construction can rely on its approvals. When a project is halted after major construction progress, the next investor has to price the possibility that the same thing could happen again. That risk does not stay on Wall Street. It becomes part of the cost of future infrastructure.
The Williams/Transco Regional Energy Access Expansion project was approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in January 2023. The project was designed to expand Transco pipeline capacity by 829,000 dekatherms per day across Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Maryland.
In July 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit vacated FERC’s approval. The court said FERC had not adequately explained its market-need analysis and greenhouse-gas review. FERC later reinstated the certificate in January 2025, and Reuters reported that the project was designed to provide enough gas to serve 4.4 million homes annually.
Alan Armstrong, former Williams CEO
Alan Armstrong described the Williams project as a real-world example of what happens when approval does not settle the risk.
“That project was stopped nine months into it”
Armstrong also said the line was running at a 90% load factor within 9 months, which he described as unusual for a new pipeline. That matters because high early usage suggests the project was not an abstract planning exercise. It was already serving demand. The reversal and later reinstatement show why financing infrastructure is harder when approval can be reopened after the project has started operating.
Infrastructure risk is eventually paid by someone. When regulatory and legal uncertainty rise, investors demand higher returns. When investors demand higher returns, project financing becomes more expensive. When financing becomes more expensive, the cost can pass through to ratepayers, renters, commuters, manufacturers, and households.
Rep. Scott Peters, U.S. Representative from California connected the investor-risk issue to a foreign-investor warning.
“Investing in American energy was sort of akin for them now to investing in Vietnam or Brazil.”
That comparison should be read as an attributed investor reaction, not a formal credit rating. Still, the finance logic is clear. A 2019 study on foreign infrastructure investment and political risk found that foreign direct investment in infrastructure is especially sensitive to political risk because infrastructure requires high capital investment, longer investment periods, and exposure to shifts in government policy.
Alan Armstrong, former Williams CEO, made the household link even more directly.
“The reason your utility bills are high isn't because we don't have a tremendous amount of resource”
His broader point was that bills rise when infrastructure cannot be built to connect resources to consumers. That is the household version of the dysfunction premium. America may have energy resources, private capital, and demand for new projects, but the cost rises when the system cannot turn approvals into completed infrastructure.
The grid bottleneck makes permitting certainty more urgent. Demand is rising from data centers, manufacturing, electrification, and population growth. At the same time, new generation and transmission projects often wait in long queues before they can connect to the system.
200,000 megawatts wait as only fraction connects. Created via Gemini.
PJM Interconnection (PJM) shows the scale of the problem. PJM is roughly a 180,000 MW system, but about 200,000 MW of proposed generation is seeking study to connect to the grid. Historical completion rates are only 10% to 20%.
That means a large queue does not automatically solve a power shortage. A project is not useful because it appears on a spreadsheet. It is useful when it is financed, permitted, constructed, interconnected, and operating. Every stage carries risk, and every unresolved risk lowers the chance that planned capacity becomes real capacity.
The queue problem also shows why policy certainty is not just a legal concern. It is a reliability concern. If too many projects remain stuck between proposal and completion, the grid becomes tighter, emergency procurement becomes more likely, and households face higher exposure to price spikes.
REEDOM Act is one congressional attempt to move the debate from faster review to durable approval. Its text targets enforceable timelines, expedited judicial remedies, limits on federal actions that halt fully permitted projects, and compensation tools for projects damaged by late-stage reversals.
Four fixes aim to lock in permit certainty. Created via Gemini.
That approach matters because the core problem is not only delay. It is reversibility. A system that takes years to approve a project and then leaves the approval vulnerable after construction begins creates risk on both ends. Developers lose time during review and still face uncertainty after approval.
Rep. Scott Peters also drew a clear distinction between process law and environmental law when discussing the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
“It is a procedural statute. It is not the bedrock environmental law.”
That distinction matters for reform. Environmental safeguards can remain serious while approvals become more reliable. The policy question is not whether every project should be approved. It is whether projects that clear lawful review can rely on that result.
Pocket veto problem is not limited to one fuel, one party, or one agency. Revolution Wind shows the risk for offshore wind. The Williams/Transco reversal shows the same uncertainty for gas infrastructure. PJM shows the system-wide consequences when a large queue does not translate into completed projects. Across these examples, the common problem is market certainty.
Permitting certainty will not make every project affordable, clean, or necessary. It should not erase serious review or public accountability. But once a project clears lawful review, investors and households need the approval to mean something. Without that certainty, infrastructure becomes harder to finance, slower to build, and more expensive for everyone.
