A pair of senators are planning to advance a coastal infrastructure bill at a hearing next month after scrapping discussions about adding it as amendment to a high-profile permitting reform bill that passed out of committee Wednesday.

Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) had sought to add the “Reinvesting in Shoreline Economies and Ecosystems (RISEE) Act” as an amendment to the major bipartisan permitting reform bill set for consideration in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Wednesday, Whitehouse had told the Washington Examiner. The RISEE Act would direct revenue streams from offshore and onshore energy projects to states to use for coastal restoration and conservation. 

But the RISEE Act is not among the 60 amendments filed to be proposed for addition to the permitting bill. Whitehouse had told the Washington Examiner if he and Cassidy were not able to get the measure considered during Wednesday’s committee meeting, it would instead be taken up in a separate September mark-up. 

“We’ve worked out an alternative arrangement,” Cassidy told the Washington Examiner on Tuesday. 

A Senate aide said that committee leadership had only allowed for amendments that wouldn’t affect spending levels to be introduced at the mark-up, since it was unclear what the cost estimate of the permitting bill would be. Amendments that would need a cost estimate from the Congressional Budget Office would be pushed to the September mark-up. The legislative vehicle for the amendments is likely to be public lands bill, Manchin announced during Wednesday’s hearing.

The plan to consider amendments that require CBO scores at a later date was undertaken to ensure the smooth passage of the permitting reform bill out of committee and prevent other measures from complicating its approval. A number of amendments were withdrawn during Wednesday’s mark-up of the permitting reform bill, with an agreement to consider the measures during September’s hearing.

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The permitting reform bill, negotiated by Sens. Joe Manchin (I-WV) and John Barrasso (R-WY), is the result of a yearslong effort by legislators to find ways to accelerate project approvals, which are often slowed by complicated bureaucratic processes and held up by court battles. The bill easily passed out of committee on Wednesday, 15-4.