Senators released a long-awaited bipartisan bill Wednesday that could reshape the permitting process for infrastructure and energy projects from gas pipelines to wind turbines.
The Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act is aimed at overhauling the processes those projects go through to get approved for construction.
The four main negotiators of the deal — Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island), Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-West Virginia) and Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-New Mexico) — laid out a massive vision for the impact of the bill, which they said would help with everything from building more clean energy and creating new jobs to boosting the entire American economy.
“We’re motivated by one central shared concern: We want to make it easier in America to build things,” Lee said at a press conference announcing the deal.
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The bill includes provisions meant to make permitting more certain for developers and support the construction of more transmission lines. The legislation would also set limitations on how people can legally challenge new projects under the National Environmental Policy Act. Lawsuits would need to be filed within 150 days of a project’s approval, and those suing would need to have participated in the project’s public comment period.
Data centers developers would be required under the legislation to pay for all the costs associated with grid upgrades, a move that would go further than the Ratepayer Protection Act lawmakers failed to advance Wednesday.
The legislation faces an uphill battle. With the House gone from Washington until after the midterms, only a few short legislative weeks remain before January, when leadership shakeups could scuttle a deal.
“Sometimes big things can happen in lame duck,” Capito said. “We’re banking on it.”
The deal appeared nearly to fall apart several times in the lead-up to Wednesday’s press conference, including earlier that morning over language around offshore wind projects.
The question of whether permitting would return to normal for wind and solar projects, many of which have been blocked under the Trump administration, is still “unresolved,” Whitehouse told reporters.
“But we have had what I would consider to be a very reasonable opening proposal from the Trump administration,” he said. “We need more clarity on that.”
Concessions offered by the White House earlier this month on renewable project permitting bolstered negotiations. The Trump administration has attacked multiple solar and wind projects already in the permitting process, creating a serious hurdle to reforms that both sides pledged would finally come to fruition. Trump has rescinded approvals for major energy projects, issued stop-work orders and cut deals to kill offshore wind development, and terminated grants for other clean energy infrastructure.
Lawmakers have struggled for years to break partisan gridlock on how to reform the U.S. permitting process. Despite widespread agreement that the process of building infrastructure involves too much red tape, Congress hasn’t been able to find common ground on how much of that tape to cut.
A narrower bipartisan bill negotiated in 2024 between Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyoming) and then-Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia made similar moves, but never made it out of the Natural Resources Committee.
Aidan Mackenzie, an infrastructure fellow with the Institute for Progress, called the new deal “easily the best permitting bill we’ve ever gotten.”
For Republicans, the promise of permitting reform includes quicker construction of fossil fuel infrastructure and AI data centers, a focus for the Trump administration. For Democrats, it’s a path toward boosting solar, wind and battery storage projects, along with the transmission lines essential for transporting more electricity.
In a reflection of the widespread interest in permitting reform, both the American Petroleum Institute and Americans for a Clean Energy Grid put out statements in support of the bill.
The response hasn’t been unanimously positive, though. The Conservation Law Foundation called the bill a “backroom energy deal,” saying it would put communities and clean energy at risk.
“The more than 400-page bill appears to adopt a fossil fuel industry wish-list, with passage slated before Christmas, sacrificing numerous protections for communities and the environment to achieve outcomes wholly dependent on President Trump’s highly qualified, pre-election assurances that his administration will act in good faith and allow clean energy projects to move forward,” said Conservation Law Foundation President Brad Campbell.
Rose Luttenberger Caruso, advocacy director at the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, said passing permitting reform is the biggest clean-energy-related movement possible in the current political environment.
“We are very focused on getting more clean energy online, and the current permitting system just takes way too long to do that,” she said. “It is something that will go a long way for both parties. It’ll help the president’s energy agenda, and it’ll also help bring more sources of clean energy online.”
The House passed several bipartisan permitting reform bills at the end of last year that would have eased requirements under NEPA and the Clean Water Act. On Wednesday, the Senate negotiators said their bill incorporates some language from the House.
The window to pass any kind of permitting reform may slam shut come January, when committee leadership changes and longtime negotiators leave their posts.
If Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island) moves to the Judiciary Committee as expected, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon) is next in line to be his party’s leader on the Environment and Public Works Committee. Merkley, a climate-focused progressive, has raised concerns about permitting reform compromising environmental reviews.
“If it does not happen this Congress, I do not feel that it will happen until 2029 at the earliest,” Luttenberger Caruso said.
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