Politicians in Washington, D.C., certainly love their red tape. Despite the damage such bureaucratic bungling does to their constituents, they just can’t give it up. It should not have come as a surprise, then, when they jettisoned much-needed permitting reform late Monday.

“It’s a shame that our country is losing this monumental opportunity to advance the commonsense, bipartisan permitting reform bill that has strong support in the United States Senate,” said Sen. Joe Manchin, I-W.Va. “Unfortunately, this is just another example of politics getting in the way of doing what’s best for the country. Leadership means you must lead and leading means making hard decisions and not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good for all of our constituents.”

The Energy Permitting Reform Act would have shortened the timing for judicial review of energy and permitting projects and accelerated federal decision-making for leasing energy project on federal lands. It would have allowed for at least one lease sale for offshore wind and offshore oil and gas projects per year from 2025 to 2029 subject to limitations. It would also have reformed backstop authority for interstate electric transmission lines and require interregional planning.

Crucially, it would have limited how electric companies allocate expenses to customers for transmission line projects, and included other items to speed up transmission projects. And it would have given the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation opportunity to comment regarding issues of electric reliability to federal agencies considering projects.

As Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., pointed out, this wasn’t just about fossil fuels. It was about renewables, broadband and much more. But when elected officials can’t wrap their brains around asking the bureaucracy to do better for consumers, it’s easy to see where priorities lie.

Capito and incoming Sen. Jim Justice, R-W.Va., were right to understand the demand for such change will not wane — at least not on the part of those who know the need for that change is greater than the desire to keep doing things the way they have always been done.

But it probably won’t be easy — Capito is right on that front too.

They must not give up.