(Editorial - Graphic Illustration - MetroCreativeConnection)

Give them a hot-button topic that doesn’t actually affect the lives of ordinary people and politicians will waste no time hopping on and digging in. But when the issue is something of great significance to the rest of us — individuals and their employers — they drag their feet.

That is the case with permitting reform.

Last time it got any serious traction in Washington, D.C., former U.S. Sen. Joe Machin was leading the charge on the Energy Permitting Reform Act. Now, U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., is bringing lawmakers’ attention back to the matter in the hope that something will be on the president’s desk by the end of the year.

She’s working with Senate Environment and Public Works Committee ranking Democratic member Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I. (She is chairwoman of that committee). This is a bipartisan press.

“It’s not just new pipelines or natural gas. It’s solar, it’s wind, it’s broadband, it’s housing development, it’s transportation projects,” Capito said. “I think what we’re seeing here is a convergence of clean energy folks and people like me who are all-of-the-above meeting together with an urgency, and I think that’s why I think we have a better shot at this year than we’ve had over the last few years.”

In other words, this is a wide-ranging effort that streamline a process that now genuinely impedes progress. It has support from both sides of the aisle and makes sense. And, as Capito points out, “that would be great for West Virginia.”

Knowing the way things go in Washington, all those positives might add up to a negative once more elected officials get their hands on it. But for now, let’s share Capito’s optimism and hope she and others really can get permitting reform across the finish line this time.