WHAT’S HAPPENING TODAY: Good afternoon and happy Wednesday, readers! The annual Mubadala Citi DC Open is being held this week. Some of the top tennis players will be competing, including Jessica Pegula, Naomi Osaka, Ben Shelton, Taylor Fritz, and many more. 🎾🎾🎾 A few folks from the Washington Examiner, including Callie, are planning to stop by the tournament this week. Please say hello if you’ll be there! Welcome to Daily on Energy, written by Washington Examiner energy and environment writers Callie Patteson (@CalliePatteson) and Maydeen Merino (@MaydeenMerino). Email cpatteson@washingtonexaminer dot com or mmerino@washingtonexaminer dot com for tips, suggestions, calendar items, and anything else. If a friend sent this to you and you’d like to sign up, click here. If signing up doesn’t work, shoot us an email, and we’ll add you to our list.Pressure on Congress to pass meaningful permitting reform before the midterm elections just got a whole lot stronger, as one of the most vocal advocates for getting legislation to the president’s desk has said a bill won’t go anywhere if the House flips in November.
Republican Sen. Alan Armstrong of Oklahoma issued the warning today during the American Council for Capital Formation’s policy forum, saying the Senate has to act now. “If we don’t get this done before we change Congress, it’s going to be an almost – almost dead issue from my perspective in terms of thinking that the House is going to be able to do something constructive if the House flips,” he said. The Senate faces an extremely uphill battle to pass legislation that would overhaul and simplify the process for federal agencies to issue permits and approvals for projects such as highways, pipelines, housing, transmission infrastructure, and much more. Not only is there a shrinking number of days the upper chamber will be in session before the elections, key Senate committees on energy and the environment have not yet released any text for a bill. Top negotiators of both parties, including Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito and Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, previously indicated that they hoped to release text before the August recess. Past reporting also suggested that if a deal is struck, Senate Majority Leader John Thune will prioritize time on the floor for a vote after the August break. It’s important to remember that the journey doesn’t stop there, as any package would be sent back to the House – which initially passed a bipartisan permitting reform bill in December of last year. Analysts have pointed out that the current relationships between committee chairs and ranking members have put negotiations in the best position they have ever been in. Those positions are expected to shake up in the next Congress, and could threaten the progress made across the aisle thus far if hardline Democrats move into various leadership seats. “The only thing that will happen if we don’t get it this Congress is that we’re going to have higher costs and more pollution. It’s just bad all around,” Xan Fishman, vice president of the Energy Program at the Bipartisan Policy Center, told Daily on Energy. “I really think that the politics don’t get any better if we wait.”INSLEE CASTIGATES TRUMP OVER DISASTER FUNDS:
