The House of Representatives is set to vote Wednesday evening on a last-minute agreement that President Joe Biden and Speaker Kevin McCarthy reached to raise the federal debt ceiling and avert a government default.
While the final 99-page bill would cut $136B in federal spending, it doesn’t pull back any of the spending from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which is intended to spur major federal infrastructure projects, and it includes environmental permitting reforms aimed at moving those projects forward faster. 
Infrastructure projects can often wait up to five years to receive the necessary federal approvals, but the bill’s permitting reform provisions would require the environmental review and approval process for new energy projects take no…