BAAJA is a blank check that lets industry bulldoze protections for clean water, wild salmon, and our health. This bill rips away the rights of communities and Tribal Nations to defend our public health, climate, water, land, and air. With more than 75 separate rollbacks, it’s the biggest attack on our nation’s bedrock environmental laws since the 1970s.
The so-called Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act of 2026 (BAAJA) is a backroom deal that hands even more power to Big Tech and fossil fuel giants, a full-on nuclear assault on the laws that have kept our land and water safe for generations. With a stroke of a Sharpie, it guts the National Environmental Policy Act, Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act, and the National Historic Preservation Act, which have protected sacred sites for generations. This bill makes it easier for oil, gas, and mining companies to dump toxic chemicals into our air and water, putting us at greater risk for asthma, cancer, and early death. No one should lose years of their life just so Congress can make things easier for big business. BAAJA strips away the few chances communities have to speak up about new fossil fuel projects. Why? Because protecting our air, water, and climate gets in the way of industry profits. The bill also fast-tracks data center expansion, leaving communities with higher bills, dirtier air, and polluted water. Meanwhile, reckless support for AI and gas exports raises energy costs for families and boosts profits for polluters. Recent research shows that the Trump administration’s support for reckless AI development and increased gas exports drives up household energy costs while delivering even greater profits to the fossil fuel industry.
This dangerous bill is slated for a Senate vote on November 9. If it passes, the House is ready to push it through next. That means it’s time for all of us to make noise, loud and clear, in every community, through every channel we have. We need every voice, every story, every angle that speaks to our neighbors’ hearts. Let your representatives know: the people do not support this bill, and their political futures are on the line. Their credibility is on the line.
It cuts off communities’ access to the courts, while giving Big Oil and Gas new legal loopholes to escape accountability. Today, when an agency breaks the law by approving a pipeline or mine, a judge can halt the project until the agency does their job. Under this bill, the judge can no longer stop the project. The bill’s text says the “only remedy the court may order” is to send the paperwork back to the agency “without vacatur or issuance of an injunction,” and the bulldozers keep running while the agency fixes it. It gives Americans 150 days to sue instead of six years, and only if they’ve already filed a detailed comment on the exact flaw they’re suing over. Judges would be ordered to give “substantial deference” to Doug Burgum’s Interior Department.
But the deck is stacked before a judge even sees a case. The National Environmental Policy Act, which Richard Nixon signed after the Senate passed it without a single dissenting vote, requires federal agencies to study how a major project will affect the surrounding land and water and tell the public before taking any action. NEPA requires federal agencies to study how a major project will affect the surrounding land and water. This bill lets agencies ignore new science and toss out any alternative that doesn’t fit what the company wants. The company, not the public, decides which options are even on the table. And, by exempting activities beyond the Outer Continental Shelf from NEPA, this bill creates a sweeping new loophole for activities on the high seas, eliminating environmental review of deep-sea mining authorizations and enabling industrial-scale harm to deep-sea ecosystems that scientists still do not fully understand, which not only impact sea life but the food and work communities rely on the sea for.
Meanwhile, project developers get privileged access to the courts and powerful new remedies against the government. The package accelerates specified permitting litigation and elsewhere gives developers new avenues for injunctions, litigation costs, and economic damages. In this package, corporations get new tools to force projects forward, while communities harmed by those projects face new barriers to stopping them even when the government breaks the law.
The bill perversely takes the “disparate treatment” standard from the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and applies it to major corporations, letting them sue the government for billions in taxpayer-funded damages when their projects are denied, while silencing frontline and fenceline communities experiencing disproportionate health, environmental, and economic harms. This makes it much harder for frontline communities to stop harmful, and even unlawful, projects. It restricts access to judicial review, directs courts to give agencies “substantial deference,” and generally prevents courts from vacating or enjoining an authorization even after finding that it violates NEPA, instead requiring the court to send the decision back to the agency while the authorization remains in place.
Could it possibly get worse? Yep. If a future president tries to stop a pipeline, gas export terminal, oil and gas drilling, or mine approved under this bill, taxpayers could be forced to repay the company up to half of what they spent. If a new administration slows industry approvals compared to the last five years, developers can demand damages up to the full expected construction cost. The bill calls this ‘fair treatment,’ but it really means the public pays the price if we try to protect our land and water. It makes it faster and easier for Big Oil and Gas to drill, frack, and exploit our public lands, in defiance of climate reality. The science is clear: No new fossil fuel projects are compatible with a climate-safe future.
It does the same thing to Tribal Nations. Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act is what gives Tribes a voice before federal projects destroy their sacred sites. Under current law, agencies “shall” consult with Tribes and historic preservation officers. This bill changes that word to “may.” It narrows which places count as culturally significant and, in most cases, bars courts from undoing a bad decision. It lets the federal government penalize or seize control of a Tribal Historic Preservation Office it decides isn’t “performing.” The National Association of Tribal Historic Preservation Officers called it a “legislative assault on the sovereignty of Tribal Nations.” This is the government-to-government relationship the United States owes Tribal Nations by treaty.
Wildlife also gets run over by the bus. The Endangered Species Act has kept 99 percent of listed species from disappearing by requiring real scientists to review federal projects that could harm them, and their findings can require changes to protect them. This bill lets states take over those reviews, putting decisions about belugas or polar bears in the hands of Alaska’s state legislature, which is most friendly to the oil and gas industry. Even if the USFWS keeps the job, the bill slashes the review time from 90 days to 60, even though they’ve already lost more than a third of their staff.
Who needs water? Turns out it isn’t safe either. Section 401 of the Clean Water Act has long let states and Tribes refuse to certify a federally permitted project and stop projects that would pollute their rivers and drinking water. Under this bill, a state could say no only by proving, “by clear and convincing evidence,” that no condition could fix the problem, and any condition it imposes would be the “least burdensome” option for the developer. This bill makes it nearly impossible to say no, forcing states to jump through hoops and pick the option that’s easiest for the developer. Gas pipelines get special treatment: state reviews are limited to direct discharges from a single point, and states get nine months instead of a year. The bill even strips EPA of the power to veto a destructive wetland permit once it’s been issued. (Sec. 1202-1205). And remember the EPA’s rarely used 404(c) veto authority against the Pebble Mine? The bill reduces EPA’s 404(c) veto authority, which allows the agency to veto the use of a site it finds would cause unacceptable harm. A new statute of limitations creates a 150-day limit for lawsuits under the Clean Water Act’s Section 404. It stipulates that a Court can’t cancel the permit unless activities pose substantial danger to human and environmental health.
This bill amounts to a permanent rubber stamp for data centers’ fuel of choice: fracked gas. The deal clears the way for a mass buildout of gas pipelines by narrowing state and Tribal authority under Clean Water Act Section 401, exempting pipelines in existing rights-of-way from NEPA review, capping reviews at one to two years, and giving communities only 150 days to bring a challenge to federal permits in court. The so-called “ratepayer protections” protect no one. Data centers are going “behind the meter,” so the deal’s transmission cost rule may never reach them. The climate math doesn’t hold up. The modeling assumes clean energy will displace fossil fuels, but the permitting reform deal will also accelerate gas and other fossil fuel infrastructure. Meanwhile, booming data center demand will likely absorb new clean power without reducing fossil generation, while new gas infrastructure locks in decades of emissions. And any fossil fuels we don’t burn here can be exported, further entrenching the U.S. as a petro-state.
More corporate protections for the Carbon Capture industry, ignoring inadequate regulations, are also on the table. The bill does nothing to strengthen inadequate protections for drinking water, climate, public health, and community safety around carbon capture pipelines and injection wells like the one planned to go under Cook Inlet | Tikahtnu. The bill’s project-certainty provisions make it difficult to revoke or even pause an existing permit for carbon dioxide injection wells and enhanced oil recovery wells while comprehensive public health and safety protections are developed. The bill would ease permitting for carbon capture developers by exempting stream and wetland crossings with under two acres of dredge and fill impacts, and by restricting state and Tribal Section 401 water quality reviews of carbon dioxide pipelines, undercutting states’ ability to set their own protective standards, which we might actually have a chance at with a new Governor in Alaska. States that miss the bill’s arbitrary one-year federal deadlines for approving carbon capture projects could also face legal and financial liability. (Secs. 1202 and 1204)
And yes, public lands are on the chopping block too. After a court stopped a mining company from dumping waste on Forest Service land, this bill would let companies claim as many five-acre waste sites as they want for just $400 a year. That’s $80 an acre, about the same as filling your car with gas.
Lastly, the bill enables data center expansion and fracked gas infrastructure. This bill amounts to a permanent rubber stamp for data centers’ fuel of choice: fracked gas. The deal clears the way for a mass buildout of gas pipelines by narrowing state and Tribal authority under Clean Water Act Section 401, exempting pipelines in existing rights-of-way from NEPA review, capping NEPA reviews at one to two years, and giving communities only 150 days to bring a challenge to federal permits in court. The so-called “ratepayer protections” protect no one. Data centers are going “behind the meter,” so the deal’s transmission cost rule may never reach them. The climate math doesn’t hold up. The modeling assumes clean energy will displace fossil fuels, but the permitting reform deal will also accelerate gas and other fossil fuel infrastructure. Meanwhile, booming data center demand will likely absorb new clean power without reducing fossil generation, while new gas infrastructure locks in decades of emissions.
It is possible that modest long-term increases in renewable energy may occur in the future but will be negated by the demands of data centers and the long-term lock-in of fossil fuel infrastructure. Renewable energy will not surge ahead with Trump in the White House and oil executives running the Department of Energy. The fossil fuel industry’s grip on this country’s energy system and politics will only be harder to diminish. Even if the United States shifts toward renewable energy, fossil fuels will still be exported, and the costs to the environment, the courts, Tribal Nations, and communities will be catastrophic.
Bottom line: this bill gives industry a blank check to build or destroy wherever they want, shutting out community voices at every turn. Even leaders who want to protect our lands and waters would be powerless to stop the damage.
If you have five minutes:
- Call your members of Congress to tell them you oppose the bill. Here’s a sample script you can use.
- Post on social media using these sample social media posts or uplift others’ posts.
- If you represent an organization (no matter how small or big), sign your group’s name onto letters to members of Congress.
If you have 15 minutes:
- Record a social media video explaining why you oppose the bill.
- If you represent an organization, email your group asking them to take action against this bill.
If you have 30+ minutes:
- Use this Letter to the Editor writing guide to draft and send in a submission to your local paper.
- Contact your Members of Congress personally and/or join an in-district or virtual meeting with other leaders. They need to hear from you directly, early and often!
- Check out the resources and links section for other supporting materials.