Senate Weighs Energy Legislation Amid Data Center Backlash

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate on Monday is set to take up bipartisan legislation aimed at speeding up permitting reviews for data centers and other infrastructure projects, in the first major action since last week’s election that soundly repudiated President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans.

The Senate is expected to hold a procedural vote on the bill, which senators and the president have pushed as a way to meet growing demand for electricity and other forms of energy that now faces yearslong delays in getting to the grid.

The legislation’s sweeping changes would shorten the timeline to get big energy projects started — both for clean energy and fossil fuel projects — and make sure data centers pay for the energy they use. Anger over artificial intelligence data centers and rising electricity helped usher in a wave of Democrats pledging to clamp down on the massive, energy-hungry structures.

Trump urged senators to vote for it, calling it a “BIG WIN for U.S. ENERGY INDEPENDENCE and DOMINANCE.” in a social media post on Sunday. The bill will “ensure that we can build Pipelines, Mines, and Power Plants faster than ever before, lowering Energy Costs for American Families,” Trump wrote.

Major industry groups representing developers in clean energy and in the oil and gas sector also support the bill.

However, many environmental organizations have panned the deal because they say it would lock in fossil fuel development, weaken environmental safeguards and make it harder for communities to challenge energy project approvals.

Midterm results could complicate bill’s passage in lame-duck session
While the bill has received bipartisan support, the Democrats’ sweeping midterm win could complicate its passage.

Some Democrats say the party should use its stronger position in the next Congress to pass legislation that produces needed clean energy but limits expansion of oil, natural gas and mining. Some critics have said the permitting bill as proposed could lead to a vast increase in exports of liquefied natural gas and facilitate a “reckless” build-out of data centers powered by natural gas.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a New York Democrat who is expected to become speaker in January, criticized the bill last week, with his office saying it “falls short” in a number of areas.

SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS