The House voted Thursday to curb states’ authority to block pipelines, part of a renewed Republican push to overhaul the federal permitting process for energy and other major projects.
The PERMIT Act, which passed by a vote of 221 to 205, targets a provision of the more-than-50-year-old Clean Water Act that governors in Northeastern states have used to halt pipelines they view as threats to water supplies and the environment. Regulators have invoked the law to block projects by Williams Cos. and Millennium Pipeline Co. LLC, preventing shale gas from Pennsylvania and Ohio from reaching consumers in New York and ...