AUCTION BARN STUDIO, FORT WORTH, Texas (RFD NEWS) — In this week’s Champions of Rural America, RFD-TV continues its conversation with Congressional Western Caucus Chair Rep. Celeste Maloy.
The Utah Republican recently introduced legislation aimed at speeding up geothermal energy development on federal lands, saying the proposal would help expand domestic energy production while creating new opportunities for rural communities.
“So I introduced the GEO Act, and what it does is make it so that we can do permitting faster for geothermal projects,” Maloy told RFD News at a recent co-sponsored Rural Town Hall. “We need more energy in this country. And everybody talks about an all-of-the-above approach. And one of the ways we can have an all-of-the-above approach is to make it so that permitting goes more smoothly. Oil and gas is, you know, we’ve been doing it for a long time. A lot of the permitting issues there have been figured out. People who do it do it all the time. They know the system. Geothermal is not as prolific. We don’t have as many projects. And so sometimes they get really hung up in the process. And we’re trying to make sure that we’re getting all of the technologies we have available to us online.”
Maloy said the legislation is designed to build on existing geothermal permitting experience instead of treating every project as if it were the first.
“The biggest thing it does is it makes us so we’re not pretending it’s the first time we’ve ever permitted a geothermal project. We’re learning from the projects we’ve already done, which is something that happens in other parts of the energy sector.”
She said Utah is uniquely positioned to benefit from the legislation because of its geothermal resources and the companies developing new technologies in the state.
“In Utah, we’re blessed we have hot rocks underground. And we know they’re there. We’ve got one geothermal plant in my district that’s been operating for I think 40-something years. But because we know we have the resources, we also have companies in Utah that are doing research and developing geothermal technologies that can work in places we didn’t think had hot enough rocks in the past.”
Maloy said streamlining the permitting process would allow those technologies to be deployed more quickly across the United States and internationally.
“With something like the GEO Act, when we can speed up permitting, then we can take these technologies that are being developed in Utah, where we have the resources, we have the space, we have the interest, and we can sell those same technologies to other places in the country that maybe don’t have natural gas, they don’t have oil underground, but they want to be able to produce dispatchable baseload renewable energy, and even outside of the United States.”
She added that expanding geothermal energy could also strengthen relationships with U.S. allies by reducing their dependence on geopolitical rivals for energy supplies.
“These are things that are good for the United States. They’re good because they create jobs in these rural economies in the West, and they help keep the world stable.”
Maloy introduced the GEO Act in January 2025. The bill is currently awaiting action in the House Natural Resources Committee. Geothermal permitting reform has previously received bipartisan support in Congress.
