Throughout this Congress, I've been introducing legislation and working with my colleagues to get permitting reform across the finish line. As the New Democrat Coalition's Environment, Climate, & Clean Energy Working Group Chair and the Problem Solvers Caucus' Permitting, Energy, and Environment Working Group co-lead, I've led both groups to develop frameworks (which can be read here and here) for this critical legislative package. The House has passed several key bills of mine, including my ePermit Act, Save Our Sequoias Act, and Fix Our Forests Act. We've also sent the SPEED Act to the Senate.
Finally this week, Senators Whitehouse (D-RI), Capito (R-WV), Heinrich (D-NM), and Lee (R-UT) compiled these and many more permitting reform proposals and introduced the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act of 2026 (BAAJA). This comprehensive package has strong reforms that both Republicans and Democrats can get behind.
Here's a full list of my bills that are included in BAAJA. These bills will help reduce emissions and lower energy costs within months rather than the current timeline of years. It currently takes about 8 years to site, permit, and construct the average power transmission line. That timeline is even longer for the high-voltage, interregional transmission we need to bring renewable energy online and reduce harmful emissions from fossil fuels. Right now, we spend more than $25 billion on transmission and distribution - a record high. 90 percent of that is local reliability upgrades and the replacement of old equipment. When we spend money on inefficient solutions, we can't build more efficient, cleaner projects and costs remain high. These bills would ensure better planning and oversight of transmission projects to actually lower household energy bills.
The CERTAIN Act, which accelerates energy and infrastructure projects by enforcing strict application timelines and stops administrations from canceling permits that were already legally approved. The bill has been supported by nearly 40 organizations representing the people who build, power, and maintain America's infrastructure.
The CLEAR Act, which speeds the review process for large energy infrastructure projects and establishes clear rules for stalled transmission projects, giving developers and local stakeholders the certainty to plan and giving ratepayers relief from rising costs.
The BIG WIRES Act, which directs the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to better coordinate construction of an interregional transmission system, minimizing haphazard, patchwork grid upgrades.
The ePermit Act, which digitizes the U.S. permitting process, reducing processing times for all federal permits, including National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) reviews.
The bill takes significant steps to push back on data centers - requiring that public utilities charge data centers as much as they need to cover both the generation and transmission that is needed to serve their facilities. That keeps those costs off of our bills. It also holds them accountable by having federal regulators issue a rulemaking to force utilities to revise existing or establish new rates for data centers to make sure they comply.
These and other reforms are a win for affordability, high-paying jobs, and our environment.
Over the next few years, the U.S. could see a 15 percent rise in energy demand and an 18 percent rise in electricity costs. High electricity prices can be addressed by building more power from every source, but especially more cost-effective sources like wind, solar, and battery storage. Right now, however, our national power grid can’t keep up with the increased demand - it’s too old, slow, and insecure. It’s also costing us money. In 2023, adequate and efficient transmission investment would have saved consumers between 3.5 and 5 billion dollars. The bills in this package will speed up the permitting process so we can bring more energy supply online faster, expand and strengthen the grid to more efficiently move power between communities, and lower costs, all without compromising our environmental standards.
The people who build, power, and maintain America's infrastructure are urging Congress to act. They don’t want to be pulled off job sites for weeks or months because the Trump Administration stopped a project for political reasons. For them, uncertainty means unemployment. The projects being built and waiting to be built represent tens of thousands of good paying, union, middle-class jobs for skilled workers. By setting firm deadlines for federal permitting decisions and environmental reviews, requiring expedited judicial review, and removing political gamesmanship from the entire process, this package would reduce the delays that hinder the job market and threaten the livelihoods of our labor community.
95 percent of energy projects in the permitting pipeline right now are for non-emitting, renewable sources like wind and solar. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, August 2026 was the hottest month on record, and extreme weather events are occurring with above average frequency. That’s not sustainable. To ensure our planet remains safe for future generations, we need to accelerate the transition to a clean energy economy. The Senate’s package has provisions that will reduce dangerous carbon emissions and help us address climate change at a rate that matches the urgency of this crisis.
The package still needs some adjustments and clarifications, but it ought to be voted on this Congress and I’m confident it will have strong bipartisan support. This would be really good for our country and it’s a chance for Congress to prove to the American people we can still accomplish big things. We can’t waste it.
