Opinion
Class Notes
The Senate’s permitting bill arrives with a message from voters attached. “The people sent us a very clear message on Tuesday that they expect us to lower the costs in their daily lives,” Sen. Martin Heinrich said Monday, before senators voted 73-25 to take up the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act, according to Politico. He’s right about the message. The question is whether this bill answers it for working families or mainly for the companies that want to build faster.
The honest answer is some of both. That’s why the amendment votes this week matter.
The part worth fighting for
The best section of the bill has a working-class logic. The Ratepayer Protection Act, included in the package, would make data center developers pay for the power and grid upgrades they need, CNBC reported. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, the Republican co-author, said it would make data centers “pay their own way instead of American consumers facing increased costs through rising utility bills,” according to her committee.
That should be the floor, not the ceiling. The artificial intelligence boom is being built by some of the richest companies in history. When they need a new substation, the bill should land on their balance sheet, not on a nurse’s electric bill. Any amendment that softens this provision, delays it or turns it into a negotiable guideline should be voted down.
The building trades see jobs in the bill, and they’re not wrong. Sean McGarvey, president of North America’s Building Trades Unions, wrote that it “supports job creation” and “helps reduce costs for working families,” Capito told the Senate. Transmission lines and power plants are built by union electricians, ironworkers and operating engineers. A left that can’t say yes to that work will lose those workers, and it should.
Where speed costs the public
But speed is not neutral. The bill would put new limits on how long lawsuits can last and on the scope and length of reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act and the Clean Water Act, Axios reported. Critics argue it weakens environmental protections and tribal input, according to the same report.
For the families who live next to a compressor station or a new highway interchange, review and litigation are often the only leverage they have against a company with a hundred lawyers. Shrinking those windows does not remove conflict. It decides in advance who wins it.
Supporters have a real argument, and it deserves a hearing. Capito cited manufacturers’ estimates that permitting delays cost $12.1 billion a year and McKinsey figures showing $1.8 trillion in investment waiting on federal reviews. Some of those delays hold up the clean energy and transmission that would bring bills down. Heinrich’s office says the bill would give tribes an equal seat with states in transmission planning, according to a statement. That is a genuine gain.
The fix is not to block the bill. It’s to make sure faster approval comes with something for the public in return.
Three amendments for the lame duck
First, lock in the data center provision with real enforcement, so that state regulators and consumer advocates, not only utilities, can make sure costs stay with the companies that cause them.
Second, pair shorter review timelines with labor and community standards for projects that use the fast track: prevailing wages and local hiring for construction, and a binding community benefits agreement for big projects in neighborhoods that already carry more than their share of pollution.
Third, keep a meaningful path to court. A deadline for lawsuits is defensible. A rule that makes it practically impossible for a town or a tribe to sue is not.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democratic co-author, has promised a “very healthy amendment process,” Axios reported. Progressives should take him at his word and show up with amendments, not just objections.
The House test
The bill still has to pass the House, where analysts at Jefferies say Democratic leaders argue the Senate version falls short, according to Axios. President Trump has endorsed it, according to CNBC. Democrats who take the House majority in January will have more leverage then than they do now, and some will be tempted to wait.
They shouldn’t wait for its own sake. They should ask what working people get. If the answer is lower bills, union jobs and data centers paying their freight, it’s a good deal. If the answer is mostly faster approvals for whoever has the most money, voters who just sent Washington a message about costs will notice.
Nadia Kowalczyk is the pen name of a Washington Inquisitor opinion columnist writing from a democratic socialist perspective. The views expressed are the author’s own and not those of The Washington Inquisitor.
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