Democratic Senators Offer Last-Minute Pushback to Permitting Rule

Five Democratic senators asked the White House on Monday to rethink its plan to reform the way environmental permitting is conducted across the nation, one day before the Council on Environmental Quality is set to close its comment period on its proposed rule.

But the lawmakers’ last-minute demand of CEQ Chairman Mary Neumayr isn’t expected to sway the agency’s rulemaking process. The council said March 4 that it wouldn’t extend the comment period or arrange further public meetings for its pending rewrite of the regulations implementing the National Environmental Policy Act.

• In their letter, Democratic Sens. Tom Carper ...