A sweeping bit of legislation designed to cut red tape could speed up the buildout of energy infrastructure in the US.

With the dust barely settled on this week’s momentous midterms, the Senate is set to vote on the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act (BAAJA) on November 9. It’s a plan that could finally start an overhaul of the slow, complicated process for getting energy projects approved, as part of something called permitting reform. People on both sides of the political aisle have been pushing for this type of change for some years. 

The key question is whether this will cut greenhouse-gas emissions from the US energy sector or push them higher still.  

The federal permitting system is designed to protect the environment against industrial pollution from large projects like power plants, transmission lines, and natural-gas pipelines. Today, permitting is governed by a range of laws, including the National Environmental Policy Act and the Clean Water Act. And if there’s one thing you might know about the current state of permitting in the US it’s that it’s slow and incredibly complicated.

So in its 417 pages, BAAJA attempts to tighten things up. The bill has provisions that narrow the sorts of projects that need to apply for federal permits and others that enact deadlines in hopes of speeding up a process that today can take years. (There are also specific provisions about transmission planning, mining, and the rest of the kitchen sink; this thing is dense.)

One thing to know about this bill is that it’s largely technology neutral: It opens the doors for the buildout of projects involving both fossil fuels and renewables.

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