Tom Steyer: Heinrich’s Bipartisan Permitting Deal is Our Best Chance to Build Clean Energy at Scale with Urgency Climate Change Demands

WASHINGTON - Today, climate leader and former presidential candidate Tom Steyer published an op-ed on his Substack urging fellow progressives to support the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act (BAAJA), the permitting reform agreement led by U.S. Senators Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Ranking Member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources; Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Ranking Member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works; Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), Chair of the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works; and Mike Lee (R-Utah), Chair of the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.). Steyer argues that the urgency of climate change makes this bill a chance Congress can't pass up, detailing how it beats the status quo and would speed the clean energy buildout through faster transmission siting, data centers paying their share of grid costs, and permit certainty for approved projects.

Full text of the op-ed can be found below or read here.

Take the deal

By Tom Steyer

Last week, my home state released its fifth Climate Change Assessment report. Its predictions were no surprise: longer, hotter summers; stronger storms; and deadly wildfires. In other words, everything we've been experiencing here in California for years now-just worse.

You've probably heard it said that the best time to act on climate change was 50 years ago…and that the second-best time is now. Well, four senators-Democratic Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (RI) and Martin Heinrich (NM), along with Republican Senators Shelley Moore Capito (WV) and Mike Lee (UT)-have introduced a bill that gives us a chance to act now. We can't afford to pass it up.

The Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act (BAAJA) is the most comprehensive permitting reform package Congress has ever produced. And those reforms would pave the way for building the green energy infrastructure our country needs, quickly and at scale.

Before shifting my focus to the fight against climate change, I spent 30 years cutting deals on Wall Street. In that time, I learned that the true test of a deal boils down to one question. It's the same question I asked last summer when California was weighing its own bill to overhaul permitting reform, with major updates to our state's cornerstone environmental law, CEQA: Does it beat the status quo?

In both cases, the answer is a resounding yes.

The permitting and environmental reform package Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law last summer shifted California from a culture of caution to a culture of creation-clearing the way for more housing, more energy infrastructure, and more public transit. Now, Washington has an opportunity to take that culture of creation nationwide.

A culture of caution once made sense. When we saw the devastation we were wreaking on our planet by burning coal and oil to power and build, we made it harder to build irresponsibly and easier to stop projects that poisoned our water and polluted our skies.

But the energy infrastructure we currently have is woefully insufficient for the green energy future we need. Replacing a billion machines with clean alternatives and scaling up our grid to meet that demand is an enormous project-one that will take a lot of building, on a lot of land, as fast as possible.

Without BAAJA, "as fast as possible" isn't fast at all. As Grayson Flood-Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's former legislative director-explains, building power lines that cross state lines requires approvals from every state involved. That can take years. Or the entire project might get killed by a single holdout. BAAJA changes that by giving the federal government authority to intervene when states say no or take more than a year to plan and site power lines. That means more power lines carrying more affordable energy to more people across America. Which means lower bills for all of us.

Of course, no conversation about energy bills is complete without talking about data centers. BAAJA would require data centers to pay both their share of existing transmission infrastructure and the cost of expanding it to serve them. It would also establish broader protections to keep the additional costs of serving large data centers from being shifted onto other electricity customers. Big tech doesn't get to send its bill to regular Americans; if tech companies want to use massive amounts of energy to power their algorithms-they can pay for it.

One more provision worth highlighting is permit certainty. BAAJA protects the integrity of projects from the inconstancy of politics: Lawfully permitted projects keep their permits, with exceptions for extraordinary circumstances, or unless overturned by a court order. That means no more presidents (like our current president) strangling approved green energy projects out of spite-or to protect friends' and family's fossil fuel investments.

BAAJA isn't perfect. Like every deal, it's a compromise. And like every deal, it's only as good as its execution. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, one of the Senate's most prominent climate champions, acknowledged that. But he decided to put his name on it because he recognizes that, at the end of the day, this bill is much, much better than the status quo.

I've spent years and a good deal of my own money fighting for climate action, and I'm not in the habit of praising anything Republicans have endorsed. So I'll say it plainly to my fellow progressives: this is a bill we should support, and I'm asking you to join me.

The vast majority of projects stuck in the pipeline right now are clean energy projects. Speed is on our side. Delays favor legacy energy systems fighting to maintain dominance-and the people who profit from them.

The current system does little to protect the environment and even less to advance the technologies we need to save it. BAAJA changes that by freeing us up to build the green energy projects we need with the urgency that climate change demands.

50 years ago, we didn't have the clean technology that this bill would unleash, and-as every climate change report tells us-50 years from now will be too late. BAAJA landed right before the Senate recessed ahead of the midterm elections. Time is of the essence; call your members of Congress today. The best time to pass this bill is right now.

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