{"id":23029,"date":"2026-05-20T14:02:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T14:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/key-senators-meet-over-dinner-to-discuss-permitting-deal\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T14:02:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T14:02:12","slug":"key-senators-meet-over-dinner-to-discuss-permitting-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/key-senators-meet-over-dinner-to-discuss-permitting-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"Key senators meet over dinner to discuss permitting deal"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Key Senate negotiators held a bipartisan meeting Monday night to discuss closing a long-sought deal on overhauling the federal permitting process for energy projects \u2014 a sign that talks are progressing despite the difficult odds in a midterm election year.<\/p>\n<p>Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), a moderate Energy and Natural Resources Committee member active on permitting issues, organized the dinner meeting with committee leaders to \u201cprovide a forum to keep conversations moving,\u201d according to a person granted anonymity to describe the private gathering.<\/p>\n<p>Environment Public Works Chair Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) and Energy and Natural Resources Chair Mike Lee (R-Utah) also attended the gathering, along with the ranking members of each of these panels \u2014 Democratic Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, respectively.<\/p>\n<p>Lee, in an interview Tuesday, called it a \u201cgood bipartisan meeting\u201d and stressed \u201cwe\u2019re making good progress\u201d on an overhaul of federal permitting rules for energy projects of all kinds \u2014 from solar and wind farms to long-distance power lines to pipelines and gas export plants \u2014 in a bid to respond to spiking electricity and gasoline prices.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s always good to get together with colleagues and talk,\u201d Whitehouse said Tuesday, confirming his attendance, while cautioning that \u201cthe real work is being done in actual negotiations.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Capito also claimed \u201cgood progress\u201d and regular \u201cengagement\u201d with Whitehouse, Lee, Heinrich and Trump administration officials.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI wouldn\u2019t say we smoothed out the rough edges, but we all know what we want here, so that\u2019s good,\u201d she added, while also expressing hope they could reach a deal before lawmakers leave town for the monthlong the August recess.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Key Senate negotiators held a bipartisan meeting Monday night to discuss closing a long-sought deal on overhauling the federal permitting process for energy projects \u2014 a sign that talks are progressing despite the difficult odds in a midterm election year. Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), a moderate Energy and Natural Resources Committee member active on permitting [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23029\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}