Significant energy and environmental laws governing federal permitting would be amended under a draft bipartisan Senate agreement unveiled Wednesday designed to greenlight all energy projects faster and boost the strained power grid.

Senate Republican and Democratic negotiators agreed to language shortening the environmental review and litigation process for federal permits, easing siting for transmission line buildout, and strengthening protections for already-permitted energy projects to avoid political interference.

The bipartisan proposal also would require big load centers, including data centers, to pay for all of their associated transmission costs to protect ratepayers from energy hikes.

“This is a major step toward making it faster and more efficient to build infrastructure projects certainly without giving up any of the strong protections for our environment,” said Environment and Public Works Chairman Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) during a Wednesday press conference unveiling the deal. “This is a big thing, it’s monumental and legacy-setting.”

Capito, Energy and Natural Resources Chair Mike Lee (R-Utah), and the panels’ respective top Democrats, Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.) and Martin Heinrich (N.M.), have spent months trying to broker a deal amid partisan politics and the Trump administration’s attempts to cancel and delay renewable energy projects.

The wide-ranging, much-anticipated bipartisan consensus on a permitting overhaul unveiled Wednesday ultimately took years to negotiate but still faces many hurdles, including garnering bulk support from each party’s caucus. The desire to revamp the lengthy, cumbersome permitting process has emerged as a top priority for lawmakers in both parties as energy costs rise.

“This has taken a long time,” said Whitehouse during the press conference. “No issue was an easy issue. A lot of dead-end avenues had to be explored before we found the compromises that made this possible.”

Any votes expected on a final version of the legislation will wait until the post-midterm election lame-duck session. The Senate is scheduled to leave town this week and won’t be back until November. Capito said the permitting overhaul bill is on track to be the first legislation the Senate will vote on when it returns after the election.

‘Good for Both Sides’

The proposal, dubbed the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act, is designed to ease permitting for all fossil fuel and renewable energy projects in an effort to appeal to both Republicans and Democrats.

Some Republicans in recent days grew frustrated with Democrats’ caution in fully endorsing a deal, arguing the minority party didn’t want to give the GOP a win before midterms. But Democrats have said they wanted time to educate their members about the agreement.

Whitehouse said Wednesday negotiators are still working with the Trump administration to ensure already-permitted wind and solar projects aren’t rescinded. “We’ve had what I would consider to be a very reasonable opening proposal from the Trump administration,” he said. Even so, “we need more clarity on that,” he added.

That back-and-forth will happen “in parallel” with work on amendments from senators, Whitehouse said.

The Democrat said the proposal would boost clean energy, lower ratepayers’ energy costs, and increase jobs across the country.

The outcome of the midterm elections shouldn’t adversely affect the effort to enact permitting legislation this year, Lee said. “We have negotiated this thing in a way that really is good for both sides.”

Project Certainty, Transmission

The draft text — more than 400 pages — would streamline review processes for permits under the National Environmental Policy Act, Endangered Species Act, National Historic Preservation Act, and the Clean Water Act. The proposal also would limit the amount of time parties can mount legal challenges to projects to 150 days in most cases.

Negotiators also included language seeking to protect already-approved permitting projects from being reversed, something that has happened in both Democratic and Republican administrations.

Many of the recommendations on boosting transmission, including on cost allocation, are similar to what was in an earlier bill championed by then-Sen. Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.) and Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.). That legislation, the 2024 Energy Permitting Reform Act, advanced out of the ENR Committee but didn’t make it to the floor.

The idea behind the transmission provisions is to ensure that entities benefiting the most from build-out shoulder the bulk of the cost.

The bipartisan blueprint released Wednesday also would simplify the transmission siting process by making the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission the sole agency for siting interstate transmission lines designated in the national interest.

Several bills aimed at increased geothermal energy also are included in the framework.

House Prospects

The House last year passed bipartisan legislation (H.R. 4776) streamlining permitting reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act. They’ve also passed smaller bills, some bipartisan and others Republican-led, that aim to expedite federal permitting.

It’s unclear how the Senate proposal will be received in the House, where the politics and vote margins are just as tricky. Some House Republicans and Democrats Wednesday released statements praising the Senate negotiators and pledging to work with them to get a permitting revamp enacted.

Capito said ideas “direct from House language” are included in the Senate deal, which could help attract support in the House. “We were sent here to do big things. Sometimes big things can happen in lame duck and so we’re banking on our colleagues seeing what this does for everybody and the bipartisan nature of it.”