Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) is “bullish” on the lame-duck passage of S. 5653, the industrial-fast-tracking legislation dubbed the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act (BAAJA).
In an interview with the Washington Sun’s Igor Bobic, Schatz dismissed the argument that Democrats could negotiate a better bill with more Democrats in Congress after January 3rd. He said proponents of waiting such as Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) would have to “prove” that a better deal on permit reform will be possible after the lame-duck session. This is an impossible condition.
Schatz dismissed most critics of the data-center-accelerating legislation as “degrowthers” who “hate development of all kinds,” but conceded that “people who care about local ecosystems” and the “tribal side” have legitimate concerns.
He praised his own record of legislative compromise on climate policy, calling the 2015 “[temporary] extension of the investment tax credit and the production tax credit with the oil export ban being lifted” one of his “proudest moments,” further claiming that and “the IRA with the Mountain Valley Pipeline in it” were both “net-net good for climate.” The investment tax credit and the production tax credit for renewable energy are ending, while oil exports very rapidly outstripped the modeling of energy analysts, who incorrectly claimed the compromise would be net-net good for climate. Climate pollution in the United States and the world continues to rise.
Full transcript:
Q: I want to turn to the lame duck which may or may not be one of the lamest ducks...SCHATZ: I’m bullish on the lame duck.
Q: Are you? Why? Why is that?
SCHATZ: I don’t know. I’m always bullish.
Q: Ha ha ha. You’ve got 24 days, uh, just 24 days, and you have a long laundry list of items to take care of. In addition to government funding, there’s the annual defense spending bill, maybe college sports, maybe permitting reform. Where do you see permitting reform going? I know some Democrats say, “Let’s hold out. You know, if we win one or two chambers, we’ll get a better deal with with the Trump administration in the new year.”
SCHATZ: Um, so I think, I think there’s enough time to do everything. Um, and I don’t think, like, if we gave ourselves another seven weeks that would necessarily mean we’d be seven weeks more productive. Like, we we only work well on deadlines. We’re like uh we’re like an eighth-grade boy.
Q: Ha ha ha.
SCHATZ: Um, and we need that deadline in order to get all the stuff in.
Q: I also don’t. Ha ha ha.
SCHATZ: Yeah. Um uh on permitting, like the likelihood that something better would pass in the next Congress. I someone would have to prove that to me. I don’t think you can just sort of suppose that you can get a better deal. I’m still working through um the amendment process both on the um tribal side um uh for the National Historic Preservation Act and how it impacts the tribal preservation offices, as well as some, some of the conservation organizations want some relatively technical amendments that they think would would sort of, um, defang some of the worst aspects of it. Um, but you know it is a planetary emergency, and, um, and so I’m, generally speaking, hawkish on taking um big steps in the direction of clean energy, even if it’s a mixed bag, right? One of my first most prouded my proudest moments was um we passed the uh uh extension of the investment tax credit and the production tax credit with the oil export ban being lifted. So it was kind of a mixed bag. And then we passed the IRA with the Mountain Valley Pipeline in it. And so I’m sort of accustomed to doing things as part of a deal that I think net-net are good for climate. Um but I think this month is for trying to make sure that it’s that the net-net is still better. And there’s still time to improve this bill.
Q: So basically, you know, some of these environmentalist groups who are ramping up against this bill, you feel like they should chill out a little bit.
SCHATZ: I mean, it sort of depends what you mean by environmental groups, right? There are some organizations that sort of make their bones stopping everything. Um I don’t think the mainstream environmental organizations um are in that posture. They’ve got some real reservations and they’ve expressed them to me and everybody else. But you notice they didn’t sort of come out and say this is the worst thing that’s ever been done. They’re asking for fixes. And so I think they’re trying to play a constructive role. One point I just want to make, which is kind of wonky but it matters to me…
Q: Sure.
SCHATZ: …If there’s some people who just like hate development of all kinds, including solar, including geothermal, including wind, that’s you can put those folks in a different category called degrowthers. They sort of they they want the economy to shrink and that’s their theory of um saving the planet. Um but there are others who um who care very much about making climate progress.
But also the conservation movement, you know, before the climate movement, was about streams and surf areas and hiking areas and hunting areas. And so we don’t want to characterize anybody that’s got a concern about an ecosystem as some sort of degrowther, right? The the environmental movement is a big tent and used to be a big bipartisan tent for the very reason that some people are not tracking, “Is it 1.6 degrees of warming or is it 1.62 degrees of warming?” They’re tracking whether there’s fish in their stream. They’re tracking whe they’re tracking whether their wetlands are drying up. They’re tracking their local ecosystems that they access as part of their life and their lifestyle. And so we want to respect the people who who care about ecosystems. Sure, they also care about the overall climate question, but like speaking for myself, I obviously have devoted my professional life to solving the climate question. But if someone came in and said, “In exchange for that, we’re just going to have to ruin a couple of your personal surf sites,” I would have some reservations. And that doesn’t make me some, you know, reflexive NIMBY degrowther. It just means that there are equities that have to be sorted in the context of politics.