Less than a week after the nation’s seismic repudiation at the ballot box of Trump’s lawlessness and the unchecked data-center buildout, Congress returns to work today to fast-track the passage of legislation to further unleash Trump and the data-center boom.

At 12:30 pm, a massive rally is expected in front of the U.S. Capitol to protest S. 5653, the now 494-page industrial-expediting megapackage dubbed the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act (BAAJA), for its evisceration of the National Historic Preservation Act. The Rally for History, Culture, and Sovereignty will feature speakers including:

At 3 pm this afternoon, the lame-duck U.S. Senate reconvenes to begin consideration of S. 5653, with the first vote on the bill scheduled for 5:30 pm. This vote will be one of only two or three cloture votes on the legislation with a 60-vote margin. As the legislation was forcefully endorsed by President Donald Trump last night (“ensure that we can build Pipelines, Mines, and Power Plants faster than ever before”), these Senate cloture votes are the only opportunity for Democrats, whose party will regain control of Congress in January, to stop the bill, which, as Ariel Moger wrote, will end the modern environmental era.

BAAJA’s Democratic co-sponsors Sens. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who spent the month preceding the election promoting the legislation with the National Association of Manufacturers president Jay Timmons instead of working to get out the vote for Democrats, are holding a press conference at 11 am this morning to promote Trump’s bill. They will cite blue-sky models from fossil-fuel and data-center industry groups that agree that if energy demand from the data-center industry inexorably rises (but does not respond to greater supply), if the Trump administration and the Roberts Supreme Court faithfully interpret BAAJA, and if fossil-fuel exports are ignored, then BAAJA’s support for fast-tracking high-voltage transmission and elimination of public checks on industrial projects will have modest effects to increase renewable capacity and distribution. As former Sierra Club and Niskanen Center chief counsel David Bookbinder summarized:

With the note that “to drop a highly substantive manager's amendment on a Saturday in advance of the key vote on a Monday doesn't provide enough time for careful analysis,” Matthew Littleton warns that “‘tribal sovereignty must yield to our exploitation of abundant natural resources’ isn’t a message that ages well.”

National Association of Tribal Historic Preservation Officers Ira Matt understandably agreed with that conclusion, as BAAJA’s assault on Tribal sovereignty is largely unchanged:

UC Berkeley environmental law professor Eric Biber’s bullet-point summary of the managers’ amendment is a litany of BAAJA’s crimes, including this: “Allows CEQ to override any and all interagency procedural requirements, without judicial review.” Biber prefaced his more detailed first-look review with the troubling warning: “I keep discovering major issues in the text.”

University of Arizona law professor Justin Pidot affirms the new text leaves the radical dissolution of the National Environmental Policy Act unchanged.

The Environmental Protection Network affirmed that the modified BAAJA provisions on “project certainty” “still risk restricting EPA’s authority to update pollution regulations and enforce environmental laws, creating significant legal uncertainty.”

On Tuesday, Heinrich will participate in an Energy and Natural Resources nomination hearing for Dennis Kirk, one of the key architects of Project 2025, whose ambitions for guillotine-grade “permitting reform” are achieved by Heinrich’s bill. Kirk is nominated to be Inspector General for the Department of Interior, which is led by Doug Burgum, who has millions invested in the prospect of building mines, data centers, and data-center energy infrastructure on public lands—which Heinrich’s bill will permit. Heinrich voted to confirm Burgum in both committee and the full Senate.

At the same time, Whitehouse will participate in an Environment and Public Works nomination hearing for Justin Schwab, who led the demolition of the Obama-era Clean Power Plan during the first Trump administration. Schwab is nominated to head the air-pollution division of the Environmental Protection Agency. During the current regime, Schwab had been serving as general counsel for the White House Council on Environmental Quality before moving in July to be a senior advisor to EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin. As mentioned above, Whitehouse’s bill would further empower Zeldin and Schwab’s rollback of air pollution regulations.

After Tuesday, the Senate will not be in session during Veterans Day, and is not currently scheduled to return until Monday, November 16th. But leadership may fast-track BAAJA at any time if there is not significant opposition. As Republicans control the House, Democratic support is not needed there. (A significant bloc of industry- and finance-friendly House Democrats have announced their support for this Big Brutal Box bill.)

At 8 pm on Wednesday, Veterans Day, Unitarian Universalists for Social Justice and People Vs. Fossil Fuels are holding a Stop BAAJA briefing with Erik Schlenker-Goodrich, Executive Director, Western Environmental Law Center, and Ariana Kretz, Policy Coordinator, Climate Justice Alliance.