Hill Heat

In a statement posted to Elon Musk’s X platform, former Vice President Al Gore called S. 5653 (BAAJA) “an extremely serious mistake” that “would do far harm than good.”

He continued that “now is not the time to give the Trump administration freer rein to double down on fossil fuels,” and concluded, “after last week’s historic election, we will have a new Congress in January that can strike a far better balance.”

His full statement:

I have tremendous respect for the two Democratic Senators who have negotiated the permitting bill with two of their Republican colleagues — a bill that Congress is considering for passage during the lame duck session. I sincerely and respectfully urge the Democratic sponsors of the bill to reconsider their decision to move forward with this legislation. There’s no doubt that we need to reform the way that clean energy projects are reviewed and permitted. But as it currently stands, the bill would be an extremely serious mistake, in my opinion, and would do far more harm than good. Given how this Administration has run roughshod over the environmental laws and protections that are currently in place, now is not the time to give the Trump administration freer rein to double down on fossil fuels — which is what President Trump would surely do. And after last week’s historic election, we will have a new Congress in January that can strike a far better balance.

BAAJA (S. 5653), the industrial-expediting bill that is the lame-duck Congress’s top priority, meets and exceeds the goals of the Trump administration’s Project 2025 agenda, a new report finds.

In the report entitled “BAAJA’s path from a far-right think tank to Congress,” Friends of the Earth notes that the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 report’s section on the Council on Environmental Quality concludes:

"Finally, the President should work with Congress to establish a sweeping modernization of the entire permitting system across all departments and agencies that is aimed at reducing litigation risk and giving agencies the authority to establish programmatic, general, and provisional permits."

The authors wryly note that the permitting reform in BAAJA is “nothing if not ‘sweeping’. The bill guts NEPA, the CWA, and ESA, significantly restricts judicial review, and limits the ability of future administrations to amend or rescind permits for harmful projects.”

Citing the skyrocketing energy demand of data centers, in June the Heritage Foundation demanded “permitting reform” that effectively eliminates the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, and Clean Water Act Section 401, and sets a 150-day limit on permit timelines. BAAJA includes all of those demands. Heritage has endorsed BAAJA.

Download the report.

A leading conservation organization warns that the industrial-expediting bill BAAJA (S. 5653) could lock in data centers on public lands.

In a new brief, the Wilderness Society writes: “Alarmingly, the bill could accelerate and lock in the development of data centers on public lands and their impacts on water, wildlife, and communities.”

“If passed in its current form,” BAAJA’s project certainty language “means permanently entrenching data center development on public lands,” the society continues. “With at least 35 data center related applications covering 24,000 acres of public lands already pending, this could have very damaging impacts for public lands and local communities.”

BAAJA “could make a data center moratorium on public lands exceedingly difficult to implement,” the society noted, “and could allow developers to sue taxpayers if their projects are slowed.”

“BAAJA undermines bedrock environmental laws,” the society warns, “turning the National Environmental Policy Act into a dead letter, gutting protections under the Clean Water Act and Endangered Species Act, and giving unchecked discretion to federal officials determining when, if at all, the National Historic Preservation Act’s protections apply.”

These changes would “accelerate data center projects” by “eliminating or curtailing environmental reviews” of “cultural resources, endangered species and wetlands.”

The society cited as an example of the data-center projects that BAAJA would make unstoppable the proposed Townsite Solar 2 Data Center on public lands near Boulder, Nev. A properly permitted solar project was converted, lawlessly, to a data center project. It has since been enjoined by the Interior Board of Land Appeals.

That process would be eliminated by BAAJA.

The Wilderness Society opposes BAAJA.

Free DC co-founder and executive director Keya Chatterjee warns that the industrial-expediting bill BAAJA (S. 5653) would give Trump more power to damage Washington D.C. and the rest of the nation.

“BAAJA is dangerous,” Chatterjee, an experienced climate justice activist, told Hill Heat in a written statement. “Trump just cut down hundreds of trees against a judge’s orders, wants drones and snipers in an arch pointed at where the March on Washington occurred, ran the Kennedy Center finances into the ground which made it shut down, made a mockery and a mess of the reflecting pool and the East Wing, and is egging on the data centers that are driving up electricity prices everywhere. Not a single senator should vote to remove guardrails that are preventing Trump from causing even more damage.”

Chatterjee’s warning about BAAJA’s threat to democracy and environmental justice agrees with other environmental and civil-rights experts and organizations, including Earthjustice president Abigail Dillen, the Detention Watch Network, the NAACP, and veteran climate attorney David Bookbinder.

In a recent public letter, David Bookbinder, one of the nation’s most prominent centrist climate-law experts, described the Senate industrial-expediting bill BAAJA (S. 5653) as “a serious threat to democracy.”

Bookbinder, who has served as chief counsel for the center-right Niskanen Center and for the Sierra Club, and led an independent legal consultancy with former ExxonMobil climate policy manager David Bailey, summarized the legislation thusly:

On the one hand, it makes renewable energy permitting easier and significantly improves federal transmission policy. On the other hand, it makes fossil fuel infrastructure permitting even easier than it has already become, binds future administrations to the energy permitting policies of the Trump administration, seriously weakens the Clean Water Act, and effectively repeals the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Endangered Species Act.

Although he finds fault in every title of the bill, Bookbinder is most concerned by Title IV, “Project Certainty,” which “beggars belief.”

“By placing corporations with any such federal permit not above the law so much as completely beyond its reach,” Bookbinder continued, “these ‘project certainty’ provisions seriously threaten American democracy.”

BAAJA effectively repeals the National Environmental Policy Act: “These measures will make NEPA review largely meaningless, but ultimately that won’t matter because the Bill adds a new judicial review provision making whatever is left of NEPA unenforceable.”

He writes about Section 1401 of BAAJA:

This effectively insulates not only the construction, but “the operation at full capacity” of all existing fossil fuel infrastructure from any future regulatory action of any sort. That means, for example, no increased stringency in federal environmental regulatory requirements under any statute – the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, etc. can ever be applied to such projects. But it goes well beyond that – the clause barring the federal government from “tak[ing] any other action to interfere with or prevent” construction or operation means these facilities are immune from enforcement of any federal law that would “interfere with” the construction or “operation at full capacity” of any such infrastructure. (Nor is this provision limited to fossil fuel infrastructure; it applies just as well to steel mills, highways, etc.) In other words, a single federal permit or authorization under any one federal law effectively immunizes that project from adverse effects from changes in (1) that federal law; (2) any other federal environmental law; and (3) any federal law at all.

BAAJA Section 1106 provides a “disturbing” runaround of scientific information: “Allowing agencies to ignore scientific evidence while making decisions makes no sense whatsoever, and there is no imaginable rationale for this except as a means of limiting the amount of information an agency must consider.”

BAAJA requires the Trump Council on Environmental Quality to establish rules for an AI-run permitting system within 60 days: “This is a massive task, and the 60-day timeline means that the Trump CEQ has probably already prepared it. It is highly concerning that this CEQ will establish ‘data quality standards’ that will be used to exclude information this administration doesn’t like.”

BAAJA eliminates the Clean Water Act provision used by governors to stop the Jordan Cove LNG export terminal; PennEast natural gas pipeline; and the Northeast Supply Enhancement (NESE) Pipeline.

BAAJA’s extension from 5 to 10 years of certain Clean Water Act permits will “dramatically slow progress in reducing water pollution in states that take [effluent] permitting seriously.”

BAAJA “seriously weakens” the Endangered Species Act.

Section 1304 of BAAJA allows the federal government to transfer responsibilities of protecting an endangered species to any given state; “unless the state has a proven commitment to endangered species, that’s the end of the story.”

BAAJA effectively repeals the National Historic Preservation Act: the federal government “can wave a magic wand and decide to exempt any project from the NHPA and that decision is not reviewable in court.”

UPDATE 11/10: Bookbinder has reviewed the managers’ amendment:

The Managers’ Amendment (the “Substitute”) to the original The Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act of 2026 does not change the conclusion that BAAJA would fundamentally reshape both federal law in general and federal environmental law in particular. BAAJA reforms regulation of the U.S. transmission grid, and its sponsors believe that the resulting greenhouse gas emissions reductions justify its other provisions. But the minimal GHG reductions those transmission reforms will produce are not worth the damage this bill would cause not only to our environmental statutes but to American democracy.

BAAJA still does violence to multiple legislative norms. It repeals two statutes while pretending only to amend them; severely weakens two others; openly instructs agencies to ignore scientific data; narrows standing to challenge agency actions; and creates the novel legal presumption that agency permit denials are unlawful . . . while keeping the presumption that issuance of permits are correct. But those are not the worst parts. BAAJA effectively immunizes any project with a federal permit from changes in any federal law, and then ensures that no agency would even attempt to apply such changes because the agency would be liable for billions of dollars in penalties if it failed to prove its action fell within one of the exceptions to this immunity. Finally, BAAJA locks in place the federal energy permitting policies of the last ten years, which will make it even more difficult for future administrations to effectively reduce GHG emissions.

He concludes: “BAAJA wreaks havoc with environmental laws, legislative norms and, by insulating countless projects from the reach of all federal laws, our democracy. It must be stopped.”

Download the full letter.

If enacted, the lame-duck industrial-expediting bill BAAJA (S. 5653) will provide blanket permission for Trump’s destructive wishes in our nation’s capital. In BAAJA Follies, Hill Heat reviews several of the major legal battles against that takeover, and the implications of BAAJA’s possible passage during the lame-duck session.

Beatty v. Trump and DC Preservation League v. Board of Trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

If BAAJA passes, the Trump regime will have dangerous new legal tools to permit the threatened demolition of the Kennedy Center.

There are two separate cases against Trump’s renaming and proposed demolition of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts: trustee Rep. Joyce Beatty’s (D-Ohio) suit, and the DC Preservation League’s case, which are being coordinated but handled separately by Judge Christopher R. Cooper.

Beatty’s suit challenges the renaming of the center after Trump and its arbitrary closure, whereas the coalition of historic preservationists and architects led by the Preservation League seeks to stop Trump from “proceeding with any demolition, new construction, major reconstruction, major renovation, or major aesthetic transformation of the Kennedy Center buildings or grounds that exceeds statutory limits, circumvents mandatory federal review, or fails to comply with fundamental historic preservation and environmental laws.”

The Trump-picked board, with Trump as chair, has repeated voted to put Trump’s name on the building and close down the center. In May, when the judge ordered the name removed and the center reopened, the board relented on the name. But then the board voted again to put Trump’s name on the building and to close down the center, claiming it was in a state of extreme disrepair, so the judge issued another injunction in September against any renaming and ordered status reports on the purported repair effort while the center remains closed.

The DC Preservation League case would be severely weakened by BAAJA, as its first two and eighth counts rely on Section 106 of NHPA, and its third count on NEPA. Furthermore, the passage of BAAJA would greatly strengthen the Trump regime’s claim that the plaintiffs lack standing to sue.

BAAJA’s provisions would radically empower Trump to commence demolition without public consultation, under the guise of Congressionally appropriated renovations and repairs.

“Unless the NHPA provisions are fully removed from the permitting bill, the President will have virtually free rein to implement his pet projects in DC and nationwide, with no input from the public,” Greg Werkheiser, a lawyer representing the Preservation League, warned in a written interview with Hill Heat. Werkheiser questioned why Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who has been investigating Trump’s corrupt mismanagement of the Kennedy Center, is now “gutting the law that slows him down.”

As written, S. 5653 (BAAJA) would hamper, if not altogether thwart, critical work by civil rights organizations to halt U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) dangerous expansion of immigrant detention, the Detention Watch Network warned today. It would, instead, accelerate ICE’s deadly warehousing of Americans.

The Detention Watch Network is a national coalition fighting to end immigrant detention, and ICE’s inability to respect laws protecting nature from industrial destruction has allowed the network to stop their rapid conversion of warehouses into detention camps, which is backed by $45 billion from the One Big Brutal Bill Act (OBBBA).

“The lack of environmental review provided the essential basis for states and communities across the country to challenge ICE’s plans, resulting in NEPA lawsuits filed by the states of Arizona, Maryland, Michigan, and New Jersey; and cities in Texas, Georgia, and Utah,” explains the network. “In April, the state of Maryland won a preliminary injunction blocking ICE from proceeding with construction because of the lack of compliance with NEPA. As a direct result of that victory and others in similar lawsuits, ICE’s plans in Maryland and other states quickly stalled.”

However, if BAAJA passes, those laws limiting industrial construction would be effectively eliminated and the warehousing will recommence.

“In the future, ICE could proceed with massive, irreversible projects like the warehouse detention expansion project with little oversight and no meaningful legal recourse,” the network writes.

“If NEPA becomes utterly toothless, as it would under BAAJA,” Earthjustice president Abigail Dillen earlier criticized, “I wonder how state Attorneys General and our lawyers at Earthjustice could stop ICE from detaining thousands of people in Amazon-style warehouses as we have so far been able to do.”

UPDATE 11/4: Detention Watch Network has launched a letter campaign calling on Congress “to oppose BAAJA as written and protect communities’ ability to stop detention expansion.”

UPDATE 11/6: 48 immigrant and human rights organizations, including Detention Watch Network, Indivisible, the National Education Association, the National Immigration Project, and Union for Reform Judaism have written to Congress to warn:

As the Trump administration moves full steam ahead on its anti-immigrant, mass detention and deportation agenda, this bill would pave that path by making immigration detention facilities easier to build and much harder to stop. It would undermine years of work by organizations across the country to protect communities and resist detention expansion, weakening the tools we use to hold immigration agencies accountable.

Read the letter

At a conference at the University of Chicago on Tuesday, Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.) expressed his concerns with BAAJA (S. 5653), particularly in the real-world context of rising data-center demand, a lawless Trump administration, economic headwinds for the renewable industry, and preparations for rapid acceleration of natural gas extraction and infrastructure.

Interviewed by Axios reporter Amy Harder, Casten stated he could “not yet” support the bill, particularly as it could “create a gold rush for gas.”

“Anybody who is telling you that they can model the effects of this bill is telling you what their opinion is,” Casten warned. “They’re not telling you facts because when you have a White House that is not obeying the law, I don’t know how to model a change in law.”

Watch:

UPDATE 11/4: Casten offered further remarks in a press briefing after the elections. He raised concerns that the bill’s provisions “depend on a White House that is willfully violating the law every day to implement” but said “it’s important to withhold any judgment about what is in that bill until we see the manager’s amendment.”

Full transcript of U Chicago remarks:

If enacted, the lame-duck industrial-expediting bill BAAJA (S. 5653) will provide blanket permission for Trump’s destructive wishes in our nation’s capital. In BAAJA Follies, Hill Heat reviews several of the major legal battles against that takeover, and the implications of BAAJA’s possible passage during the lame-duck session.

Lemmon v. Trump and County Board of Arlington v. NPS and District of Columbia v. NPS

If BAAJA passes, most of the legal avenues for opponents of the construction of the Trump arch will be narrowed or shut down.

In October 2025, Trump announced his plans for a gargantuan and garish “triumphal arch” blocking the view of the Lincoln Memorial from Arlington National Cemetery. He has since announced it will also serve as a new, mechanized military outpost with drones and snipers, a claim confirmed in October 2026 in affadavits by Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.

Represented by Public Citizen, three Vietnam veterans and an architectural historian brought suit in February against the arch’s construction, citing the Commemorative Works Act, NEPA, and the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA).

In April, Trump’s CFA voted for the arch.

In June, the National Parks Service issued a rushed environmental impact assessment under NEPA, with a finding of “no significant impact”; they then avoided soliciting comment on the environmental assessment.

Also in June, they published an assessment of effect on historic sites under NHPA’s Section 106, finding dozens of adverse effects on the sanctity of those sites, but then invited only ten days of public comment. In July, they reopened twenty more days of public comment after complaints from the District of Columbia Historic Preservation Office and the Virginia Department of Historic Resources. In August, after receiving overwhelmingly negative comments, NPS issued a revised Section 106 statement finding even more adverse effects. In September, they issued a proposed historic-preservation agreement, admitting “adverse effects cannot be fully avoided” but that “the proposed location at Memorial Circle is central to the undertaking” and thus no alternative course of action could be considered.

Meanwhile, Secretary Burgum posted renderings of the arch and announced “excavation work” would begin mid-September, so plaintiffs filed for a restraining order, which was granted.

Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.)—as he was negotiating legislation to kill section 106 of the NHPA—led a September 22 letter to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum against the Arch, citing “section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act,” which requires the government to “avoid, minimize, or mitigate” adverse harm to historic sites. The letter was co-signed by U.S. Senators Angus King (I-Maine), Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.).

If enacted, the lame-duck industrial-expediting bill BAAJA (S. 5653) will provide blanket permission for Trump’s destructive wishes in our nation’s capital. In BAAJA Follies, Hill Heat reviews several of the major legal battles against that takeover, and the implications of BAAJA’s possible passage during the lame-duck session.

DC Preservation League v. Interior

Trump has been pressing forward to replace D.C.‘s historically important public park on Hains Point with Trump-style golf course. The passage of BAAJA would likely eliminate all legal means of opposition to Trump’s Hains Point plans.

As mentioned above, the Trump regime used Hains Point as the illegal dumping ground for the East Wing demolition. In December, Trump killed the leases held by the National Links Trust for D.C.‘s public golf courses, and the Wall Street Journal revealed Trump and Burgum had secretly discussed remaking the East Potomac Golf Links on Hains Point. In February, the DC Preservation League brought suit, represented by Democracy Forward. In April, Burgum’s lawyers told Judge Ana Reyes no decisions had been made on renovating the park, but at the beginning of May, NOTUS reported that “landscaping, deferred maintenance and tree-clearing work in line with the National Park Service’s pre-approved plans” were about to begin. A hasty court meeting was called and the judge ordered the regime “not to cut down more than 10 trees without first notifying plaintiffs and getting court approval.” A few days later, Burgum publicly revealed the planned redesign of Hains Point.

Contractors cut down hundreds of trees in October, spurring an angry rebuke from the judge and a restraining order blocking all new tree-cutting, with demands for phones and documents as Trump’s lawyers say one thing in court and Trump says the opposite in public.

At the moment, Trump’s plans are being restrained. However, if Congress passes BAAJA, the illegal dumping, illegal plans, and illegal destruction of historic places will become legal. The plaintiffs’ entire case will collapse, giving Trump near-total power over the future of Hains Point and East Potomac Park.

“Historical preservation matters to me,” Save East Potomac’s Alex Rosen told Hill Heat in a phone interview. “Expanding executive power, especially under this administration, is fucking unbelievable.”

Save East Po is encouraging people across the nation to contact their members of Congress to stop BAAJA.

UPDATE Nov. 2: “A federal judge has already stepped in more than once to stop unlawful actions there, catching rushed paperwork and misleading claims from federal officials,” the D.C. Preservation League said in a statement to Politico. “That only works because courts can still meaningfully review agency action, and the public still has a real voice in the process. BAAJA would weaken both.”