The U.S. House of Representatives voted 213 to 184 to pass a bill that would speed up the process of getting federal permits for natural gas pipelines that cross state lines. The bill would make the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission the main agency in charge of reviewing pipeline permits.
The law would let FERC look at water quality assessments as part of its environmental review instead of waiting for states to get separate Clean Water Act certifications.
Supporters say that state-level certifications have often held up pipeline approvals for years. The name of the bill is the Improving Interagency Coordination for Pipeline Reviews Act.It is one of several things that Congress is doing to speed up the process of getting federal permits.
The House also passed another bill, the Promoting Efficient Review for Modern Infrastructure Today Act, with support from both parties. As they try to build more energy infrastructure to meet rising electricity demand, lawmakers have made broad permitting reform a top priority.
Part of the reason for the rise in demand is the quick growth of data centers all over the country. People who support the law also say that faster permitting could help lower energy costs for households, especially by making it possible to build energy projects faster, which would increase supply and competition in the market.
Most of the recent natural gas pipeline proposals that the agency has looked at have been approved.
Chris Wright, the Secretary of Energy, said on Friday that gas prices could start to go down in a few weeks, even though they have been going up a lot because of the war with Iran. Wright said that the problems in the global oil markets are probably only temporary.
Wright told Newsmax, “Look, Iran has been raising energy prices for 47 years, the whole time their regime has been in power.” “We’re taking a break right now to finally put an end to their ability to kill Americans, terrorize their neighbors, and cause trouble.”
His comments came after oil traders and drivers reacted to rising crude and gasoline prices after the U.S. and Israel worked together to attack Iran.
Iran has also done things to make shipping through the Strait of Hormuz harder. The waterway is one of the most important places in the world for oil to get stuck. The strait connects the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman and usually carries about 20% of the world’s oil and gas. Any threat to shipping through the passage can quickly affect energy markets around the world.
AAA said that the average price of a gallon of regular gas in the US hit $3.32 on Friday. That price was higher than $2.98 just a week before.
Patrick De Haan, who is in charge of gas analysis at GasBuddy, said that if the problem lasts too long, it could get worse. “That means that millions of barrels of oil that would normally go to global markets aren’t getting to buyers,” De Haan said.
“Every extra day of the disruption makes the problem worse. “Even if the Strait opened right away, the market would still have to deal with days’ worth of missed shipments, which is getting harder and harder as the backlog grows,” he said.
Analysts have said that if the waterway is closed for a long time or has very strict rules, oil prices could go up a lot. This kind of move could raise the risk of inflation and put pressure on the White House.
Before the recent rise, gas prices had stayed below levels seen in most of 2024 and early 2025.
President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he is not worried about the possibility of gas prices going up for a long time. Trump told Reuters, “I don’t care about it.”
Trump said, “They’ll drop very quickly when this is over. If they go up, they go up, but this is much more important than gas prices going up a little bit.”
The government says that the ongoing military and naval actions will help make oil markets around the world more stable.
Wright said he thinks prices could start to go down in a matter of weeks, not months. The direction of fuel prices will probably depend on what happens in the Middle East for consumers. Shipping lanes, refinery operations, and oil exports could change the price outlook from day to day. This is especially true when geopolitical tensions and agreements, like those involving Iran’s nuclear program, affect market stability and supply levels.
