Even before Democrats trounced Republicans in the midterm elections, it struck me as odd to oppose the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act (BAAJA) on the promise of a better permitting bill next year. It still does. With Democrats in control, the argument goes, they’ll write legislation that’s more aligned with their priorities and values.
The most vocal proponent of waiting is Rep. Jared Huffman (D-CA), the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee and soon-to-be chairman, who would wield outsized influence in writing a new bill. “Folding our hand…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,” he said.
A much better deal? Hardly.
There are good-faith arguments against BAAJA, which received 73 votes on a procedural motion in the Senate Monday evening. The bill is a bet that clean energy will gain more than fossil fuels, and that environmental protections will hold. It’s reasonable to question whether Trump will continue blocking permitting of wind and solar projects after the bill passes while greenlighting fossil fuel projects. It’s also reasonable to want tribes to have more say over projects on their land.
Waiting for a better bill isn’t one of them. Democrats won’t get one next year, at least not one that can become law.
Democrats exceeded expectations by picking up nine Senate seats, yet they’re still four short of the 60 needed to break a filibuster. Even if they had 60, can you really count on James Talarico and Mary Peltola, and potentially other new red-state Democrats, supporting a permitting bill heavily tilted toward clean sources and offering little to oil and gas? That’s not how either campaigned in Texas or Alaska. What’s more, Donald Trump is still president and will wield the veto pen.
How many votes, exactly, will this “better bill” get in the Senate? Can anyone name the Republican senators who would support a bill that Democrats would write? No one in the “wait” crowd has said what they’d change, or how it would earn the votes of four Republican senators or the signature of the president.
Many of Huffman’s fellow Democrats have run out of patience.
“There’s no reason to expect that [Oregon Senator] Jeff Merkley and Jared Huffman are going to do a better deal,” said Rep. Scott Peters (D-CA). “I think the more likely thing is that they’re just not going to do a deal.”
“I disagree with [waiting],” said Rep. Nikki Budzinski (D-IL). “Do we want to legislate for legislation to become law? Or legislate to talk about issues? I’m done after the last two years of doing messaging bills on the floor.”
“Give me a break,” said Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM), who helped negotiate BAAJA. “I will take a win with the president wherever I can get one because it is fleeting.”
Heinrich is right. Permitting deals collapsed in each of the last two Congresses, and this alignment may not come around again. It’s reasonable to oppose such a deal on substance. But if you want to see permitting reform happen in the next few years, this is the deal.
I understand the temptation to wait. “Better” is always appealing. Yet with the filibuster intact and Trump in the White House, waiting shelves permitting reform until who knows when. That would rob a Democratic president taking office in 2029 of the chance to preside over the clean energy boom that President Biden set in motion with the Inflation Reduction Act but left office before seeing come online.
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