By The Daily Caller (U.S.) | Created at 2026-10-03 17:18:15 | Updated at 2026-10-03 18:08:31
2 hours ago
A bipartisan Senate energy bill would bar any administration from blocking permits for an entire class of energy projects, such as solar or wind.
The Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act would bar any administration from stalling or denying permits for an entire category of energy projects, according to a fact sheet from its sponsor Democratic New Mexico Sen. Martin Heinrich’s office.
That means no administration could block all solar, wind or other classes of energy project permits “without facing legal action and fines,” the fact sheet says.
Republican North Dakota Sen. Kevin Cramer, a member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, told the Daily Caller News Foundation in a Sept. 30 interview that the bill’s expedited judicial review provisions are “the most important part” of it.
Under the legislation, opponents would have 150 days to file a lawsuit challenging a permitted project, Cramer said. (RELATED: Senate Permitting Deal Could Give Opponents Just 150 Days To Sue Over Energy Projects Instead Of Six Years)
“Right now, it’s six years. Think of that,” he said.
“Lawfare works best with more litigants, and if everybody’s allowed to be a plaintiff, guess what? You don’t even have to come close to being successful to screw the whole thing up,” Cramer added.
WATCH:
Heinrich introduced the bill Wednesday with Republican Sens. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia and Mike Lee of Utah and Democratic Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, according to a release from the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
Thomas Hochman, a nonresident senior fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation, said in a statement to the DCNF that the permitting certainty provisions are novel and that “their effectiveness will depend partly on how courts interpret and enforce them.”
“However, BAAJA [the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act] takes a multi-layered approach which, in the aggregate, is likely to substantially reduce the ability of an administration to target disfavored projects en masse,” Hochman said.
The bill raises the threshold for pulling permits, creates a new cause of action for developers facing “an intentional pattern of discriminatory permitting decisions” and sets enforceable deadlines for federal permitting decisions on covered energy projects, he added.
“These provisions would not guarantee that every project gets approved, but they would make politically motivated obstruction much harder to sustain,” Hochman said.
A spokesperson for the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which Lee chairs, said in a statement to the DCNF that “we saw during the Biden administration how quickly the executive branch can use the permitting process to target American oil and gas production.”
“Section 1402 provides recourse if a future administration tries to use the same playbook,” the spokesperson said. “Subsection (l) specifically protects natural gas pipeline projects, allowing affected applicants to challenge a sustained pattern of improperly denied or unreasonably delayed permits and seek injunctive relief, attorneys’ fees, delay costs, and additional damages.”
The offices of Whitehouse and Heinrich and the American Clean Power Association did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment.
Capito and Lee chair the Environment and Public Works and the Energy and Natural Resources committees, and Whitehouse and Heinrich are the top Democrats on those panels.
The bill would also let permitted energy and infrastructure projects keep their permits “absent extraordinary circumstances, violations of law, or court order,” according to the committee.
The Trump administration had halted all offshore wind permits and held up permits for more than 500 clean energy projects, Heinrich’s office said in January.
“Any permitting deal is going to have to guarantee that no Administration of either party can weaponize the permitting process for cheap political points,” Heinrich said in a Jan. 7 floor speech.
An Interior Department spokesperson said in a statement to the DCNF that the department “looks forward to working with Congress to advance reforms that strengthen American Energy Dominance, lower costs, and create jobs.”
François Poirier, president and CEO of pipeline operator TC Energy, said in a statement shared with the DCNF that the bipartisan framework “improves permitting certainty for all forms of energy, from renewables to natural gas.”
“Reforming the permitting system is the single most impactful thing Congress can do right now to provide affordability relief to consumers,” Poirier said.
“We implore Congress to pass permitting reform legislation. The time for debate is over. It’s time to build,” he said.
American Gas Association President and CEO Karen Harbert said in a statement shared with the DCNF that “streamlining an overly complex permitting process will help accelerate the development of critical energy infrastructure.”
Hochman said the bill’s reforms to the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Historic Preservation Act would help projects “from wind and solar to oil and gas to geothermal, pipelines and transmission.”
“Litigation under these two laws can severely delay or stop energy projects, so the judicial review reforms limiting project-stopping court orders for procedural violations would be transformative if enacted,” he said.
Cramer said the Clean Water Act “allows states to impose their will with very little evidence of anything to stop an interstate project,” a problem he said has been “most relevant with natural gas pipeline attempts” through New York. He said the permitting bill would address “some of that.”
The bill would make data centers cover the full cost of the transmission they need instead of leaving those payments voluntary, according to Heinrich’s fact sheet. (RELATED: Senate Fails To Advance GOP-Led Data Center Bill That Had No Teeth)
The committee spokesperson said Lee “believes House Republicans will recognize that utilities should not spread data center interconnection costs across customers.”
It would give the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission more power to approve major interstate power lines and let federal and state reviews of those lines run at the same time, the fact sheet says.
The Bureau of Land Management would have 60 days to issue geothermal drilling permits, and low-impact geothermal exploration and development would skip additional environmental reviews, according to the fact sheet.
A new, time-limited consultation under the National Historic Preservation Act would run in parallel with National Environmental Policy Act reviews and give Tribes a role set in law in judging how projects affect historic and cultural sites.
“For far too long, our broken and outdated federal environmental review and permitting processes have stood in the way of energy reliability, secure jobs, modern infrastructure, and economic growth,” Capito said in the committee release.
“We once built projects like the Hoover Dam, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the Empire State Building in years, not decades,” Lee said via the release. “America still has the resources and the talent, but what too often stands in the way is a permitting system that takes too long and costs too much.”
Whitehouse said the plan would “flood the grid with clean, affordable energy and make data centers start paying their fair share.”
Heinrich noted the bill would ensure data centers “pay their fair share of the grid upgrades they require – not leave that bill to American families.”
“Our bill puts teeth behind that principle,” he said.
“Americans should not have to navigate years of costly and unpredictable government processes simply to build a home, develop new energy resources, or create the infrastructure our communities need,” John Nagle, a federal policy manager at the Pacific Legal Foundation, said in a statement shared with the DCNF.
The Pacific Legal Foundation’s research has found that permitting under the National Environmental Policy Act takes more than 500 days on average, according to the group.
