Senate votes on bill to speed up big projects, from gas pipelines to clean energy

A bill to make it easier to build big infrastructure projects in America — everything from fossil fuel pipelines to transmission lines that would add more clean energy to the grid — is scheduled for an initial procedural Senate vote on Monday. But it would roll back environmental and social protections to achieve this goal, which is why climate advocates are torn over it.

The 417-page Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act (Baaja) is sponsored by two Republicans and two Democrats in the Senate. Donald Trump urged all senators to vote for the bill.

Earthjustice, the Sierra Club and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have come out against the bill, saying it would significantly weaken environmental laws including the National Environmental Policy Act (Nepa) and accelerate the construction of gas pipelines and ICE detention centres.

Indigenous groups held a press conference on Friday calling on senators to vote against Baaja because it would weaken the federal government's legal obligation to consult tribes on projects that affect them. Mark Macarro, president of the National Congress of American Indians, said it was an existential threat to Indian country.

Protesters rallied outside Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer's building on Friday over concerns that the bill could boost datacentres. Bill McKibben said it would be highly ironic if, having won an election where datacentre opposition was at the front and centre, the first act of Congress was to make it easier to build datacentres.

Democrats elected in the blue wave will not take their seats until January, so the bill's proponents still have time to rush it through the Senate, and technically there is time for it to pass in the House before the new Congress and go to Trump.

But the election success for the Democrats is dialling up the political friction. House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, expected to be the House speaker in the new Congress, said the bill falls short in several areas, including failing to protect tribal sovereignty, and he would not rubber-stamp legislation without more constructive involvement with his caucus.

On Monday, the bill's Democratic sponsors, Senators Martin Heinrich and Sheldon Whitehouse, said they had the votes to pass the bill. Heinrich said they had made last-minute changes to ensure tribal consultation, and they believed the bill would favour renewables over fossil fuels.

Whitehouse, who wore a tie with wind turbines on it, argued that passing the bill would set the stage for Democrats to work on clean energy policies next year with majorities in the House and Senate.

Proponents of Baaja say it is needed because it takes too long to build large projects in America and the bill shortens timelines. It simplifies federal rules for building interstate transmission lines, narrows what gets reviewed under the National Historic Preservation Act, limits tribal consultation, limits the use of the Clean Water Act, shortens timelines for the Endangered Species Act, limits how the executive branch can interfere with federal permitting, and makes big changes to Nepa.

The fossil fuel industry is backing Baaja. The American Petroleum Institute (API) hailed the bill as a historic opportunity and called on Congress to finish permitting reform this year.

Earthjustice Action's president, Abbie Dillen, said it creates a very accelerated fast track for gas pipelines. The gas industry is extraordinarily excited about it because it is interested in expanding existing pipeline capacity to get more liquefied natural gas out for export, and to feed power-hungry datacentres with gas.

The bill could help pave the way for the Constitution gas pipeline that Williams Companies is trying to build through New York. The state denied the project's water quality permit in 2016, but the company has revived the project under the Trump administration. The proposed pipeline could benefit from the bill's changes to the Clean Water Act.

Some clean energy advocates want the bill to pass because it would connect renewables to the grid. Wind, solar and battery storage are now cheap to build, but the country lacks the necessary transmission lines to bring clean energy where it is needed.

Interstate transmission lines can take a decade to get built, and energy projects also face a bottleneck in connecting to the grid. At the end of 2025, 2,060 GW of total generation and storage capacity were waiting in a queue to connect to the grid.

Rhodium Group's analysis found that domestic emissions go down if Baaja passes. But another model by Purdue engineering professor Kevin Kircher found it would increase domestic emissions. Kircher said the various models have not had time for peer review since the bill was first introduced on September 30.

Nepa is the powerful law that attorneys used to block the Trump administration's plans to convert 11 mega-warehouses into massive ICE detention centres. If the bill passes, it could accelerate the development of ICE detention centres, according to a letter the American Civil Liberties Union sent to senators.

Baaja's passage would be the single biggest overhaul of American environmental laws since the 1970s, said Dillen of Earthjustice.