New in ME: Trump snarls permitting talks. Rep. Scott Peters, a top Dem NEPA reform advocate, told me Interior's efforts to suffocate solar/wind is making it “a lot harder." "If no one's going to talk back to Trump, then the whole place is broken. How can you trust the deal?”

In response, after chairing a NEPA hearing yesterday, Nat Resources Chair Rep. Bruce Westerman told me it’s not ideal for the government to use permitting to pick winners & losers and he hopes legislation would restrain that

“We need to create policy that puts the sideboards on whatever future administration is there, so that people who want to develop can have a seat at the table and a process that they don't feel is weighted either for or against them,” said Westerman, who works closely w/Peters