Jen Kiggans Warns 'East Coast Carrier Wings Cannot Do' Their Mission Due To Environmental Permitting

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During a House Natural Resources Committee hearing on Tuesday, Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-FL) spoke about environmental regulations preventing F-35 jets from landing in air bases on the East Coast.

Transcript

00:00Now, I recognize this is the gentlelady from Virginia, Ms. Kiggins, for five minutes.

00:04Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding the hearing to discuss the implications of the National Environmental Protection Act.

00:10I believe NEPA was enacted with good intentions to ensure development does not come at the cost of our environment.

00:16However, over time, it has turned into a long, complicated process that unnecessarily extends projects,

00:22drives up costs, and leads to uncertainty for businesses.

00:24Whether it's building roads and bridges, maintaining our forests, expanding and improving our military infrastructure,

00:30or developing energy projects, these delays often hurt communities that need these projects the most.

00:36As you know, my district and the surrounding areas are home to the Navy's East Coast Master Debt Base,

00:40Naval Air Station Oceana, the largest naval base in the world in Norfolk,

00:45and tens of thousands of service members across Hampton Roads.

00:48Not only do NEPA delays impact private sector projects, but projects for the military must also undergo strict permitting

00:54and siting processes.

00:56The cost of delays for defense projects is not just financially, but directly impacts our national security and readiness.

01:02We've been trying for a very long time to home the F-35s on the East Coast.

01:07Right now, they're currently just on the West Coast, but the process of getting this next generation strike fighter

01:11to Naval Air Station Oceana really comes down to permitting in this environmental impact study.

01:17And it's become a source of great frustration for me personally, knowing that money follows the new toys,

01:22knowing that we need the infrastructure investment on the East Coast.

01:25I want to get those F-35s.

01:26I want to get the FAX, the next generation strike fighter, to the East Coast Master Jet Base,

01:30which I'm sure I don't need to explain why the East Coast is important to our national security.

01:35So, Mr. Hergach, thank you for discussing the real cost of procedural drift and delays.

01:40Could you elaborate on how NEPA can impact military readiness and how we can improve and expedite the process

01:46so that we can move forward and get some of this environmental permitting just done quicker?

01:54Thank you for the question.

01:55Much like the $14 billion of wind and solar and non-fossil fuel projects that were initiated

02:00within the last five years that are held in limbo because of changes at BLM on soft triggers

02:06on the sage grouse, which creates a new subjective standard of what is priority habitat

02:10and what is OHMA, meaning like the species are in the occupied habitat, and what is outside the habitat.

02:16In the case of Fallon Air Force Base, and I'm happy to provide, if the chairman would allow,

02:20I have a list of 50 examples from each sector, data centers, hydro, wind, solar,

02:26because the FAX are going to sell this thing.

02:28It is not about hyperbole and just saying, I'm not sure why we need to erode NEPA.

02:33When the FAX on the ground show that the projects that affect everyone and everyone's constituents

02:37and power, and we can have a battle about NEPA and stripping it back,

02:41but when it comes to Fallon Air Force Base, in particular, where they were top gun,

02:45it was three years and $12 million and three different biological opinions on a species

02:50that is 12 miles away, and it's not even their priority habitat.

02:54It's habitat that once was OHMA, which you mitigate for,

02:58and still they had to do sound and vibration tests that were exhaustive in nature.

03:02And there's Camp Lejeune, and I have all these different examples where there was,

03:07you're doing reviews on, and the DOD guys get it the worst,

03:10especially the formerly used defense sites.

03:12They're willing to do the study.

03:13They hire AECOM, they hire Tetra Tech.

03:15That's the misnomer about all of this.

03:17The federal folks inside the agencies are not writing the EISs.

03:20Let me be clear.

03:21It is high-paid, high-equipped, third-party contractors that are hired on the front end,

03:27write their environmental reviews.

03:28It is incumbent on them, that is why the overbuild is happening,

03:32because they get fired, and the person who, in the company that's the program officer,

03:37including a base commander in the Army, is not going to allow this project to get set down,

03:42so they overbuild the application.

03:44They put everything they possibly can in it,

03:46and typically the fights are either about private property rights,

03:50or they're about some other issue,

03:51and you go to the code, and you pick up the environmental inventory of all the laws,

03:57which I have right here, 85 of them on DOD.

04:00NEPA's only two of them.

04:01All these others feed up into NEPA, and they're on that list.

04:05You can figure out a subjective statute on all of them,

04:07and on those wildlife statutes under ESA,

04:10it is a may effect, or a will effect, or likely to effect, or not.

04:14Those kinds of decisions are subjective decisions that are being made in the field,

04:18and right now, you are not incentivized as a federal employee,

04:23as hardworking as you are, for speeding a project up.

04:26You just don't get that.

04:27You don't get a five, but you will get your hand slapped if you do something wrong.

04:30We need to find a way to incentivize and expedite that process,

04:32because it's starting to impact national security,

04:34and my East Coast Master Jet Base, my East Coast carrier airwings,

04:37cannot do the mission that they are sent on aircraft carriers

04:40to project air superiority throughout the world

04:43without the latest and greatest next-generation strike fighter.

04:45I cannot get them in place, and oh, by the way,

04:48this Master Jet Base has been home to a wide variety of aircraft

04:52since the end of World War II, so we are not immune to noise issues,

04:56all the other environmental impact issues that we can study

04:58that we've gotten through those hoops before.

05:00We need to get this done because they've told me four years

05:03is what it's going to take to be able to get F-35s,

05:05and then, oh, by the way, I've got FAXX on the horizon after that.

05:08I need those on the East Coast.

05:10The West Coast has been prioritized.

05:12They are at Naval Air Station a little more.

05:14I've got the East Coast and the West Coast,

05:15but, again, I do not need to explain the importance

05:17of East Coast military and our fight to maintain peace,

05:20especially in places like the Middle East,

05:21so thank you for explaining that process

05:23because it is starting to impact national security

05:25and is a concern for me.

05:26Thank you so much, and I yield back.

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