The Senate voted 73-25 on Monday evening to invoke cloture and open debate on the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act (BAAJA), the sweeping permitting overhaul written by Republicans Shelley Moore Capito and Mike Lee with Democrats Martin Heinrich and Sheldon Whitehouse.
Supporters were hoping for 15 to 20 Democrats, good for around 70 votes, and TD Cowen had cut its odds of success to about 25% from 40%.
Instead, 51 Republicans, 21 Democrats and one independent voted yes. That's 22 of the 47 senators who caucus with Democrats, nearly half, backing a bill Trump has endorsed.
Piper Sandler's policy team boils the nearly 500-page bill down to four parts: permit deadlines and limits on yanking permits, a narrower NEPA, more FERC power over transmission lines and data center rules:
- Including a limit of no more than 2 years for federal decisions on environmental approvals and restraints on agencies’ abilities to withdraw permits once granted.
- Amending the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by reducing the scope of its applicability, i.e. who can sue and on what grounds, and shortening the litigation window.
- Accelerating the buildout of transmission lines by enhancing FERC’s backstop authority, which gives the federal government more authority to approve major lines and helps projects move through the permitting process much faster.
- On data centers, the bill
