HOUSTON - The Biden administration's climate law, which provides hundreds of billions of dollars in clean energy incentives to fight global warming, won't be fully effective without permitting reform, executives told the CERAWeek energy conference on Monday.
U.S. President Joe Biden last year approved the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which extends tax credits to wind, solar and other clean energy projects, but a parallel effort to speed up environmental permitting - which can take years to complete - has stalled in Congress.
"If the permitting reform doesn't happen, the IRA may not get its full use and benefit," Bold Baatar, who runs the copper business at mining giant Rio Tinto Plc, told the Houston conference.
Copper demand is expected to soar on the back of the clean energy transition because it is vital to electrification, but the United States has few existing mines and one of Rio's proposed copper mines in Arizona faces strong opposition.
Renewable energy companies and utilities have also long complained about the time it takes to secure permits for power generation projects and transmission lines required to move the power to markets.
Sanjiv Lamba, the CEO of industrial gas firm Linde Plc, said he supported the IRA because it provided incentives to find climate change solutions. But "managing the micro-level permitting issues are equally important," he added.
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