PRESENTED BY THE AMERICAN PETROLEUM INSTITUTE, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MANUFACTURERS, U.S. CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, AMERICAN GAS ASSOCIATION, U.S. OIL AND GAS ASSOCIATION, CORPORATE ENERGY BUYERS ASSOCIATION, INTERSTATE NATURAL GAS ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA, AMERICAN CHEMISTRY COUNCIL, AND THE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY COUNCIL1
Look, I really would have preferred to be spending this month on the midterms and talking about turning out the vote to stick it to Trump. But my October has been ruined by this story of weaselly ecocidal perfidy.
Both chambers of Congress are closed up through the midterm elections. Before leaving, last week Senate Energy and Natural Resources ranking member Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) and Environment and Public Works ranking member Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) joined their respective committee chairs, Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Shelley Moore Capito (R-W. Va.), to announce a new version of the Manchin-Barrasso industrial deployment bill “to reform the federal environmental review and permitting process” to fast-track energy, mining, and construction projects like hyperscalers.
This fracking-powered data-center fast-tracking bill, dubbed the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act (BAAJA), will get the first Senate vote during the lame duck, on November 9th.2
Carbon polluters and AI-data-center industrialists are delighted with the deal’s radical , accelerationism, crafted with the close involvement of the White House Energy Dominance Council. I guess we’ll never know why Whitehouse, a strong critic of climate-polluter corruption, is so enthusiastic about this dirty deal.
The AI-Abundance universal paperclippers in the Democratic fold are trying to cow the left into backing its hasty passage while Republicans still control Congress. Searchlight’s Adam Jentleson and The Argument’s Jerusalem Demsas are even aping the tactics of the worst climate deniers, with Climategate-style misrepresentations3 of a leaked transcript of an organizing call to smear environmental champions, including Erik Schlenker-Goodrich and Brett Hartl. Demsas channeled her inner Pete Hegseth and attacked the Center for Biological Diversity, a highly nerdy group of environmentalist lawyers who defend endanger†hed species and wild places, as “weirdos with fringe beliefs.”
The craven decision to jam this into the lame duck days of the misrule of House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La., no relation) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) is a blatant attempt to loot the nation while nobody’s looking.
Passage of BAAJA would hamstring the 120th Congress and cripple the Democratic Party politically, as mega-industrial projects are rammed through neighborhoods, farms, lakes, streams, and forests in every district, thanks not to Republicans, but to Democrats and “climate” groups. House Natural Resources ranking member Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) had this warning:
“I’m all for streamlining transmission and clean energy buildout, but the threshold requirement before making major policy concessions is to actually end Trump's war on renewables so that hundreds of bottled-up clean energy projects can bring that affordable power to the grid. Further, we can't throw states, tribes, impacted communities, and threatened and endangered wildlife under the bus. And as we streamline and cut red tape, we must make sure the American people — not just powerful corporate interests — have a say in government decisions about what happens to our air, water, and public lands. That's what serious, responsible permitting reform looks like.
“There's a way to get there, and parts of this deal are helpful, but some of it concedes too much. Hollowing out the Endangered Species Act through the delegation of authority and problematic definitions, for example, is so extreme that a milder version of it spooked several House Republicans off of Bruce Westerman's ESA bill earlier this year, so you can imagine how it's going to land with the American people who overwhelmingly support protecting wildlife. And the provisions that seek to guarantee fair treatment for wind, solar, and battery storage are novel, untested, and don't really end the war on clean energy, but they will still trigger cries of "Green New Deal" and fierce opposition from the House Freedom Caucus, clouding any path to pass this deal through the House unless it gets much worse. And knowing the GOP players, that's exactly what will happen if this bill advances in the lame duck.
“The bottom line for me, and I believe most Democrats, is that November 3rd is coming and we are likely to soon have a far better negotiating position. Folding our hand now or in the lame duck makes no sense when we can keep working on this and, in a few more months, have a much better deal that works for everyone.”
With Democrats in charge of Congress, legislative support for renewable energy deployment can be built on existing bills like the Environmental Justice for All Act and Clean Electricity and Transmission Act. A few of BAAJA’s 71 sections wouldn’t have to be thrown out.
Bill McKibben is very sympathetic to the goals of fast-tracking electric transmission projects, but concludes with this apt quotation from Jeremy Symons:
“Trump’s war on clean energy is a temporary problem, but this bill is a permanent giveaway to the fossil fuel industry.
There’s a reason the top lobbyists for oil, gas, chemical, and tech companies are demanding fast action on this bill before Democrats gain power in congress. The next congress might demand more instead of waving the white flag to the oil and gas industry.”
Given the catastrophic changes the legislation would make of fundamental environmental protections, the mandate of an AI-run fast-tracked permit process, and the many incentives and lock-ins for fossil-fuel infrastructure, including data centers, it will be a clear sign of industry capture if the League of Conservation Voters fails to issue a legislative letter in opposition to the bill and puts it on their scorecard.
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1 Not really sponsors of this newsletter, but, as the Senate EPW Democrats has promoted, real sponsors of BAAJA.
2 Before heading out of town, Senate Democrats also accommodated Republicans to let them confirm the virulently anti-labor Kevin Sonderling as Secretary of Labor without delay.
3 For those of you too young to remember, in the run up to the 2009 Copenhagen talks, after hackers leaked a massive trove of climate scientists emails, deniers pulled misleading quotes from them and spun conspiracy theories that GOP politicians and right-wing media relentlessly flacked.
