US Senate advances bill to speed up permitting for energy projects, but obstacles lie ahead

Passage in the Senate and the remaining obstacles

The bill, known as the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act, speeds up permitting review for data centers, mines, renewable energy and other infrastructure projects, and is the result of years of negotiations. On Monday it cleared a procedural vote in the Senate by a margin of 73 to 25, after which the approval process is expected to follow. However, two serious obstacles remain before final passage: the lame-duck session of Congress before the new composition takes office next year, and the position of President Donald Trump, who initially urged senators to vote for the bill but then said he would not approve new permits for wind turbines. This created a key point of disagreement with Democrats. The bill's co-author, Democratic Senator Martin Heinrich, said at an event on Tuesday:

Data centers and cost allocation

The bill is the Democrats' first opportunity to address the data center issue after their convincing victory in the midterm elections, when voters expressed dissatisfaction with such projects and the associated rise in energy prices. The document includes a provision requiring large data center operators to bear the additional costs of generation, storage, transmission and distribution of energy needed to serve them. According to estimates by the consultants Grid Strategies, under this measure data centers would pay $35 billion more for infrastructure over the next decade than under current policy. At the same time, some Democrats believed that a more ambitious package could have been adopted in the new Congress. Reception of the bill was mixed: the lobbying group American Petroleum Institute called it