By KD Chavez, executive director, Climate Justice Alliance On September 30th, the Senate proposed the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act (BAAJA). This bill would gut bedrock environmental laws created over half a century ago, make it harder for communities to stand up for themselves, and make it easier for polluting industries to sue the federal government to keep destroying our planet. The laws it targets—including National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA), National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA), and Clean Water Act (CWA)—helped our nation transition away from a legacy of cities blanketed with smog and at least one river catching fire from pollution. BAAJA claims it will create more jobs and make things more affordable, but faster approvals alone do not guarantee good jobs, lower energy costs, or healthy communities. The bill eviscerates legal norms and common sense in two ways: weakening current protections and establishing new provisions. Weakening Current Protections NEPA is the reason governments do environmental reviews for significant projects that could have an impact on the human environment and fall under federal jurisdiction (whether on federal land or receiving funding). This is often the process that triggers public comment periods where communities are able to share how a proposal will impact them, and experts can weigh in. The end result of that review is a final determination on the project’s permit: if it is allowed to build, and if it must take measures to mitigate impacts to the environment or human health. Before they even get to that point, projects need to be considered a major federal action, and determine if they qualify for a categorical exclusion (CATEX). CATEX basically means the government has already assessed that type of project and determined it doesn’t have a significant impact on the human environment, so no need to go through an environmental review process. BAAJA expands CATEX to include natural gas pipelines, new infrastructure built within already established rights-of-way, and repairs to facilities that can increase capacity of projects of up to 20%. Let’s use a specific example to clear up all that jargon: imagine a company just proposed building a data center on federal lands and didn’t plan on using substantial federal funding, if the nearby transmission lines needed to be upgraded to power it and they needed to build diesel powered backup generators onsite, under BAAJA the project wouldn’t trigger an environmental review process. Without this public review, there would be no way for the public or decision makers to understand how the proposed activity could cause significant impact to the environment, like air quality and water resources. And remember, federal lands aren’t just far-away, pristine natural spaces, they include Superfund sites and other properties next to homes, schools, places of worship, and businesses all around this country. Another consequence of reducing the amount of projects that receive federal review is that it limits the ability of Tribes as sovereign nations to provide input on permitting processes. This is clearly intentional because BAAJA doesn’t stop there. As the Native American Rights Fund shows in their analysis of the bill, it goes ‘so far as stripping cultural protections and Tribal participation in the [National Historic Preservation Act].’ These rights of Tribal Nations played significant roles in recent organizing fights including the Dakota Access Pipeline losing its initial operational clearances after the federal government acknowledged important issues surfaced by Tribal Nations and their members hadn’t been addressed, and the Resolution Copper Mine on sacred Apache lands Oak Flats being forced to re-initiate government-to-government consultation. What’s more, current law allows for judicial review up to six years after approval if someone can show the approving agency didn’t properly address concerns that were raised. BAAJA would limit that time to a mere 150 days. It also states that in order to sue, a party must have made a comment during review that ‘sufficiently detailed to put the applicable Federal agency on notice of the particular issue on which the party seeks judicial review.’ Finally, it strips the court’s ability to issue preliminary injunctions that could stop construction while the case is determined. This mechanism for judicial review is what just stopped the first data center from being built on public lands in Nevada. Essentially, the bill eviscerates communities’ democratic right for public comment on a project near, or in, their neighborhood, and it limits the legal options our communities have to fight bad projects in the courts—even when new impacts, harms, or new science is revealed. Establishing New Provisions Project Certainty and Disparate Impacts BAAJA also focuses on the concept of project certainty. It’s an attempt from legislators to show corporations that once their permit has been approved, it is unlikely to be overturned. That might sound like common sense, especially given how hostile the Trump Administration has been to renewables. It’s also snake oil being sold to Democrats and a glaring handout to Big Oil and Big Tech, since it will prevent future administrations from reducing fossil fuel or AI data center build out on public lands. BAAJA includes a section outlining ‘disparate treatment’ for projects including a variety of mining and energy projects. This creates a pathway for corporations to sue the federal government if they feel their type of project has been discriminated against. On the surface, giving companies the power to sue the government over discrimination might sound positive—the current administration has stalled or canceled over 200 renewable energy projects and slowed down renewable energy permitting. However, it stipulates that they must be able to show an increase in federal authorizations or permit decisions or delays for that type of project compared to the most recent five calendar years. As Michael B. Gerrard of Columbia Law School pointed out in a recent expert opinion for Law.com, ‘One problem is that, depending on when a bill with this provision is enacted, the baseline will include two, three or four years of the second Trump administration, when there were many approvals of fossil projects and disapprovals or delays of many renewable projects. Thus any reversal of this pattern in a future administration could count as disparate treatment, making it more difficult to block fossil projects that the previous administration had approved.’ In a suit related to ‘disparate impacts’, a judge could award anywhere from half to the ‘total reasonably expected cost of construction of the project.’ For instance, since the federal government has already approved liquid natural gas export terminals or petrochemical plants in the past, if it chooses to not approve them in the future, the largest corporations on the planet could sue the government for billions in damages based on ‘disparate treatment.’ Effectively corporations will be able to hold our taxpayer dollars hostage and tell the government, ‘let us build something that will harm people and planet, or hand over the money.’ And, of course, this deregulatory deal does not have a single provision to address disparate impacts caused by fossil fuel pollution that hurt communities. The only thing it makes certain is that powerful project developers, such as AI data center developers, will profit at our expense. Another Glaring Problem Let’s set aside the issues with project certainty and disparate impacts laid out above, and assume BAAJA would be a boon to renewable energy like some proponents claim. Two major issues arise from this. First, the report Opposition to Renewable Energy Facilities in the United States: September 2026 Edition from the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School found that by ‘the end of 2025, at least 888 state and local restrictions that were so severe they could have the effect of blocking renewable energy projects had been adopted.’ This same report found local-level restrictions to ‘ordinances that impede the siting of utility-scale solar, wind, battery storage, and related transmission projects’ in 46 states, while there were 19 state-level restrictions in place. Through the end of 2025 the report documents at least 567 contested projects. Resistance to these projects, and the laws challenging them, are in large part being led by fossil fuel companies and their associated organizations, think tanks, and activists. We also cannot deny that when communities don’t like something and feel like their voices haven’t been heard, they’re going to fight against it—a company picking and choosing collateral damage isn’t being a good neighbor, regardless of whether they’re fossil fuels or renewables. Despite the myth that community input delays projects, studies of energy projects have actually shown that lack of public engagement is cited as a major cause for delays. When people are excluded from decisions that affect their homes, health, and livelihoods, opposition is not irrational, it is predictable. Early and meaningful stakeholder engagement leads to better siting decisions, greater public trust, and faster project completion. BAAJA takes what has already become increasingly challenging, everyday people getting a say in what happens in their neighborhood, and promises to make it futile. Understanding all this, we have been working to center impacted communities for years, including through the comprehensive input process we provided to build the Environmental Justice For All Act, first introduced in March 2020 by late Reps. Raúl M. Grijalva and Donald McEachin. There Is an Answer – and It Is Community Led While BAAJA might make it easier for some projects to get approval, it’s going to do more harm than good for our communities, our health, and our planet. It will fast track unpopular projects, especially pipelines and data centers. This proposed law takes away our power to determine our future, and hands it over to corporations, billionaires, and out-of-touch politicians. Instead of BAAJA, we need durable permitting reform that: Puts communities at the table through early, ongoing engagement, and meaningful public participation. Accounts for cumulative harms by evaluating pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, public health, and existing environmental burdens. Strengthens the build out of responsible clean energy by modernizing transmission planning, strengthening federal oversight of interstate energy markets, and ensuring large energy users pay their fair share of grid costs. Invests in effective government through fully staffed agencies, stronger technical expertise, and better interagency coordination. Upholds constitutional Tribal sovereignty through meaningful government-to-government consultation and advancing Free, Prior, and Informed Consent. Ensures transparency and accountability through accessible permit information, environmental reviews, project status, and compliance records What the people in power don’t want us to remember is that when we come together to stand up against an infrastructure project, we are practicing a fundamental right afforded to us in our constitution. It is what Democracy looks like the other 364 days a year when we don’t cast a ballot. Right now, in the midst of an election season that seems likely to change the balance of power in DC, is not the time to cede ground to those who see our neighborhoods as their dumping grounds. The corporations, and people running them, who see our loved ones as line items. This attempt at deregulation is the worst yet, with over 75 rollbacks, sacrificing working class people, and locking in pollution and injustice for decades to come. Ultimately, the name of this bill says it all, it’s a bait and switch: putting buzzwords important to constituents in the title so legislators feel compelled to vote for it, regardless of what the fine print says. We, the constituents, need to fight to stop this bill, elect politicians who will defend our rights, and then encourage them to pass common-sense and durable permitting reform that centers the people and planet. The post New Permitting Bill in Senate Would Lock in Fossil Fuel Dominance for Generations appeared first on Climate Justice Alliance.