The lobby meeting materials for our 2026 Conservative Lobby Day emphasized the urgency of action on permitting reform.

CCL’s 2026 Conservative Conference and Lobby Day puts permitting front and center

By Flannery Winchester

Believe it or not, there are only a few short months left until we’re in full-blown midterm campaign season. That means it’s a critical time on Capitol Hill — and a perfect moment for our recent Conservative Climate Conference and Lobby Day.

“The clock is really running out,” explains Jennifer Tyler, CCL’s VP of Government Affairs. “Republicans who have introduced bills on permitting reform need to work with the other side to figure out what a deal will look like.”

Our Conservative Conference on April 18 leaned heavily into this important topic with a keynote address from Neil Chatterjee, one of the nation’s leading experts on energy markets, permitting, and energy infrastructure. 

Chatterjee led the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) during President Trump’s first term, where he helped advance critical reforms to modernize our energy system — reducing barriers, improving market efficiency, and ensuring new energy resources can be built and connected to the grid. He currently serves as the Chief of Governmental Affairs at Palmetto and is a member of CCL’s Governing Board.

‘Every available electron’

Chatterjee began his keynote remarks to the day’s 70 attendees by setting the current context. After “about 20 years of relatively flat demand for electricity,” he explained, demand is now rising. He pointed to data centers and AI, of course, but also things like vehicle electrification, building electrification, streaming services, and manufacturing. 

“All of these things are incredibly energy intensive in nature and are just going to drive up demand for energy and for electricity,” Chatterjee said. At FERC, he said, they worked to “strike a balance between making sure that we have enough electricity to meet the demands of the system while making sure that prices remain affordable for American consumers. That’s always a difficult balance, made even more complicated by this new situation.”

“If we are going to successfully meet this surge in demand for power while maintaining affordability and reliability, we’re going to need every available electron,” he said. “We’ll need energy efficiency, demand response, grid-enhancing technologies… There’s a real opportunity to do smart energy policy here, and it does really start with federal energy permitting reform.” 

Chatterjee went on to emphasize the role of Republicans coming to the table in bipartisan negotiations for a comprehensive bill, which he believes we’re already seeing in some of the energy bills coming out of this Congress.

“We’ve become trapped in this mode that when it comes to energy, if you’re for fossil fuels you’re of the political right, and if you’re for clean energy you’re of the political left,” he said. “And that is just a silly, outdated way of thinking.”

Chatterjee added, “I’m hoping that CCL volunteers can really speak to both Republicans and Democrats, take the politics out of this, and articulate the message that now is the time for smart policy.”

Less partisanship, smarter policy

This spring, that’s exactly what we’ve been doing. From mid-April to early May, CCLers sent 5,868 messages to Senate and House offices, encouraging them to review and engage with a new proposal on energy transmission from Senators Hickenlooper and Padilla. Those messages followed another 6,680 we sent in March when permitting reform negotiations officially reopened on Capitol Hill. All of these messages went to members on both sides of the aisle, keeping up a nonpartisan drumbeat.

Then, days after Chatterjee’s talk, our Conservative Lobby Day focused heavily on this topic as well. Starting April 21, right-of-center CCLers held 45 virtual lobby meetings with Republican offices focused primarily on this topic.

Our volunteer lobbyists asked Republican offices to work together to advance and pass a comprehensive, bipartisan permitting reform package this Congress. We encouraged them to consider all of these elements:

• Transmission reform, so that we can expand and modernize America’s electric grid to meet growing energy demand, strengthen reliability and lower costs for people.
• Timing, because lengthy and unpredictable permitting processes delay critical infrastructure and drive up costs.
  
• Certainty, so that we can avoid project-by-project obstruction that discourages investment and delays progress. We specifically asked Congress to establish clear, enforceable timelines for federal reviews and to establish that agencies may not suspend project permits or operations except in extreme circumstances
• Community engagement, which leads to better projects and fewer delays.

Our Conservative Climate Conference and Lobby Day is an annual effort that we’re proud to have hosted since 2020. Though we are a nonpartisan organization, we make a concerted effort to include and connect with perspectives that are too often missing from the climate conversation, including volunteers and lawmakers who are politically right-of-center. 

In a political landscape like today’s, where Republicans control the House, Senate, and White House, it’s even more vital that we show up in this way. “To back away from Republicans is not the move,” Jenn says. “Republicans are going to pass bills. If we don’t try to influence or improve those bills, they’re still going to happen.”

Having climate advocates at the table means we have a chance to shape legislation even when the bills aren’t climate-specific. “It’s so critical to have our perspective as a climate organization in there,” Jenn says.

As the permitting reform discussions advance on Capitol Hill, we expect to see evidence that our lobbying and outreach have contributed to legislative outcomes that are better for the climate than they would have been otherwise. It’s a long game, but as always, we’re showing up with our trademark persistence and optimism. 

Thanks to everyone who attended this year’s Conservative Climate Conference and Lobby Day! 

Looking for the next opportunity to learn and lobby with CCL? Join us at our Summer Conference and Lobby Day in Washington, D.C., on July 26-28, 2026.