WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate advanced bipartisan legislation Monday aimed at speeding up authorize exams to power data centers and other infrastructure projects, in the first major action since last week’s elections who strongly repudiated President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans.
The Senate voted 73-25 to formally pass the bill, which senators and the president touted as a way to meet growing demand for electricity and other forms of energy that now face years of delays in getting onto the grid.
The sweeping changes in the legislation would reduce the time it takes to launch large energy projects – for both clean energy and fossil fuel projects – and ensure that data centers pay for the energy they use. The anger is over artificial intelligence data centers and rising electricity prices helped spark a wave of Democrats pledging to crack down on massive, energy-guzzling structures.
Trump urged senators to vote in favor, calling it a “GREAT VICTORY for America’s INDEPENDENCE AND ENERGY 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 clean energy and oil and gas developers also support the bill.
However, many environmental organizations have rejected the deal because they say it would block fossil fuel development, weaken environmental safeguards and make it harder for communities to challenge energy project approvals.
Midterm results could complicate passage of bill in lame duck session
Although the bill received bipartisan support, the Overwhelming victory for Democrats in midterms 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 the expansion of oil, natural gas and mining. Some critics said the authorization bill as proposed could lead to a dramatic increase in liquefied natural gas exports and facilitate the “reckless” construction of natural gas-powered data centers.
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 the National Wildlife Federation, have strongly opposed the measure in recent days, citing concerns about the limits of judicial review and changes to the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act. The Environmental Policy Act, 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 it leads to years-long delays in obtaining federal permits.
The bill’s four main champions – two Democrats and two Republicans – released a detailed set of amendments Saturday intended to build support for the legislation.
The four senators, who lead the chamber’s energy and environment panels, negotiated the deal weeks before the election. Republican Senators Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia and Mike Lee of Utah and Democratic Senators 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 reduce costs have been stuck in the planning phase for years.
“Americans cannot afford to wait for lower electricity prices. We must pass this bill now,” Heinrich said.
Trump favors production expansion oil, natural gas and coal and he particularly hates offshore wind power. His administration has paid energy companies to withdraw from offshore wind projects under development. He passed almost 4 billion dollars on such regulations.
Whitehouse said a provision in the authorization bill would end buyouts, so the administration would no longer be able to use public money to pay clean energy developers to give up wind energy leases and force them to invest in fossil fuels instead.
Trump told reporters Monday that he is still opposed to wind power. When told that wind power was part of the bill, Trump responded, “Well, the bill wasn’t fully negotiated. I’m not going to approve wind turbines because wind turbines are a big loser.”
Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland voted against advancing the legislation, in part because of Trump’s opposition to offshore wind. Van Hollen said the bill does not fully address the administration’s efforts to block Maryland’s ongoing offshore wind project, which he said would lower energy costs for households across the state and create thousands of jobs.
Senate sponsors optimistic the bill will pass both chambers
At a news conference with Heinrich on Monday, Whitehouse said the bill was “the floor, not the ceiling, of our climate and environmental aspirations. And we look forward to working to accomplish great things with our large Democratic majorities” over the next two years.
Whitehouse said Trump’s support should help the bill move toward a vote in the House.
Heinrich said he worked hard to incorporate comments from tribal leaders on the initial proposal, adding that the amended version required federal agencies to consult with tribes on projects affecting important cultural sites.
The sponsors also expanded the window to object to agency reports and strengthened opportunities for states to intervene, Heinrich said.
If passed, the bill will save households billions on electricity costs, create jobs, reduce emissions and force large companies to pay their full share for data centers instead of passing energy costs onto consumers, he said.
Capito called the bill “a victory for America,” adding: “We cannot let this moment pass. The reality is that over the next few years we will have no choice but to increase our domestic energy production. This is an unprecedented opportunity…to come together to show the American people that we are listening.
Industry leaders are pushing 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 main lobbying group.
But Bradley Campbell, president of the Conservation Law Foundation, said it would be a “terrible mistake” to pass the bill in the final days of the current Congress.
While the changes announced Saturday address some concerns, the bill also comes with a set of new — and sometimes conflicting — rules, Campbell said. He said the bill maintains a veneer of federal safeguards while actually removing 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 basis of the Endangered Species Act and could create new opportunities to exclude needed protections for wildlife.
“This proposed rewrite of the ‘best available science’ standard could give agencies new grounds to unfairly reject credible research, including scientific data demonstrating that stronger protections are needed for imperiled species,” she said, urging lawmakers to drop the provision or oppose the bill.
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McDermott reported from Providence, RI
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