WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate on Monday is set to take up bipartisan legislation aimed at speeding up permitting reviews for data centers and other infrastructure projects, in the first major action since last week’s election that soundly repudiated President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans.
The Senate is expected to hold a procedural vote on the bill, which senators and the president have pushed as a way to meet growing demand for electricity and other forms of energy that now faces yearslong delays in getting to the grid.
The legislation’s sweeping changes would shorten the timeline to get big energy projects started — both for clean energy and fossil fuel projects — and make sure data centers pay for the energy they use. Anger over artificial intelligence data centers and rising electricity helped usher in a wave of Democrats pledging to clamp down on the massive, energy-hungry structures.
Trump urged senators to vote for it, calling it a “BIG WIN for U.S. ENERGY INDEPENDENCE and DOMINANCE.” in a social media post on Sunday. The bill will “ensure that we can build Pipelines, Mines, and Power Plants faster than ever before, lowering Energy Costs for American Families,” Trump wrote.
Major industry groups representing developers in clean energy and in the oil and gas sector also support the bill.
However, many environmental organizations have panned the deal because they say it would lock in fossil fuel development, weaken environmental safeguards and make it harder for communities to challenge energy project approvals.
Midterm results could complicate bill's passage in lame-duck session
While the bill has received bipartisan support, the Democrats' sweeping midterm win could complicate its passage.
Some Democrats say the party should use its stronger position in the next Congress to pass legislation that produces needed clean energy but limits expansion of oil, natural gas and mining. Some critics have said the permitting bill as proposed could lead to a vast increase in exports of liquefied natural gas and facilitate a “reckless” build-out of data centers powered by natural gas.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a New York Democrat who is expected to become speaker in January, criticized the bill last week, with his office saying it “falls short” in a number of areas.
Major environmental groups, including the Sierra Club and National Wildlife Federation, have strongly opposed the measure in recent days, citing concerns about its limits on judicial review and changes to the National Environmental Policy Act and Endangered Species Act. The environmental policy law, known as NEPA, requires agencies to consider a project’s possible impacts and allows the public to be heard before a project is approved, but supporters of an overhaul say that causes yearslong delays in federal permitting.
The bill's four main champions — two Democrats and two Republicans — released a detailed set of amendments Saturday designed to bolster support for the legislation.
The four senators, who lead the chamber’s energy and environment panels, negotiated the deal weeks before the election. Republican Sens. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia and Mike Lee of Utah and Democratic Sens. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island say Americans are tired of paying more in utility bills while projects that could lower costs sit stuck in the planning phase for years.
"Americans can’t afford to wait for lower electricity prices. We need to pass this bill now,” said Heinrich.
Trump promotes expanding production of oil, natural gas and coal and he particularly dislikes offshore wind. His administration has been paying energy companies to walk away from offshore wind projects under development. It has spent nearly $4 billion on such settlements.
Whitehouse said a provision in the permitting bill would end the buyouts, so the administration will no longer be able to use public money to pay clean energy developers to relinquish wind energy leases and oblige them to invest in fossil fuels instead.
Democrats are optimistic the bill will pass both chambers
At a press conference with Heinrich on Monday, Whitehouse said the bill is “the floor, not the ceiling, of our climate and environmental aspirations. And we look forward to working to accomplish big things with our big Democratic majorities” next year.
Whitehouse said Trump's support should help the bill move toward a vote in the House.
Heinrich said he worked hard to incorporate feedback from tribal leaders on the initial proposal, adding that the amended version requires federal agencies to consult with tribes on projects that affect important cultural sites.
Sponsors also extended the window for objections to agency reports and strengthened opportunities for states to weigh in, Heinrich said.
If passed, the bill will save households billions on electricity costs, create jobs, cut emissions and force big corporations to pay their full share for data centers instead of pushing energy costs on consumers, he said.
Industry leaders are advocating for the bill's passage, including leaders of the American Clean Power Association, which represents clean energy developers, and the American Petroleum Institute, the oil and gas industry’s top lobbying group.
But Bradley Campbell, president of the Conservation Law Foundation, said it would be a “terrible mistake” to proceed with the bill in the waning days of the current Congress.
While changes announced Saturday address a few concerns, the bill also comes with a gauntlet of new — and at times conflicting — rules, Campbell said. He said the bill maintains a veneer of federal safeguards while in fact stripping the power of federal agencies, states, tribes and communities to identify and prevent serious harm to health and the environment.
Sara Amundson, president of the Humane World Action Fund, said the bill weakens the scientific foundation of the Endangered Species Act and could create new opportunities to exclude needed wildlife protections.
“This proposed rewrite of the ‘best available science’ standard could give agencies new grounds to unfairly dismiss credible research, including science showing that stronger protections are needed for species at risk," she said, urging lawmakers to drop the provision or oppose the bill.
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McDermott reported from Providence, R.I.
