Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act: What the bill would change for clean energy permitting

On September 30, 2026, Senate negotiators released the legislative text of the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act, a long-awaited permitting reform package, from the chairs and ranking members of the Senate Environment and Public Works and the Energy and Natural Resources Committees. If enacted, the package would set clearer timelines for federal review and legal challenges, strengthen protections for certain issued permits, and reshape transmission, interconnection, and geothermal permitting.

Some components of the agreement remain in flux, including whether to restore the regular order of wind and solar permitting. Senators have expressed confidence in resolving the remaining items and expect to vote on the package after the midterm elections.

This analysis draws on Crux’s whitepaper, The Impact of Federal Permitting on Clean Energy Development, to explain how federal permitting affects projects today and what the bill would change for developers, investors, and lenders.

Key takeaways

• The bill sets firm deadlines for environmental reviews and legal challenges — two sources of delay that 94% of surveyed developers said had contributed to delayed or canceled projects.
• Fixed timelines, protections against permit revocations, and limits on court-ordered project halts could address the outcome 72% of surveyed developers most wanted: greater predictability.
• For investors and lenders, the bill could narrow permitting-related schedule and revocation risk that can affect commercial operation dates, financing assumptions, and conditions precedent.

How federal permitting affects projects today

Federal permitting is not limited to projects on public lands. A project on private land can trigger federal review for a variety of reasons, including if the project intersects with a wetland or stream, and Endangered Species Act (ESA) obligations apply wherever a project is sited. Even after permits are issued, lawsuits can delay projects by months or years. Crux surveyed 50 developers and permitting professionals specifically developing solar or wind projects across the US for its whitepaper. Among the findings:

• Every respondent had projects materially affected by federal permitting in the last 12 months.
• All respondents reported higher development costs, and 58% put the increase at 6–10%.
• The average project was delayed by more than 6 months.

What the bill changes

Deadlines for environmental reviews

The bill sets a two-year deadline for environmental impact statements and a one-year deadline for environmental assessments, with consequences, including travel restrictions for agency heads, when deadlines are missed.

The bill also narrows which federal actions trigger National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review. For example, projects whose only federal involvement is a loan or loan guarantee would no longer require NEPA review. National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) Section 106 consultation would run concurrently with NEPA review and must finish by the NEPA deadline.

Limits on legal challenges

The bill sets a 150-day deadline for challenges under the Clean Water Act, ESAt, NEPA, and NHPA. For NEPA claims, challengers must show direct harm and must have submitted a substantive comment during the review. NHPA has similar requirements. For NEPA and NHPA violations, courts could not vacate permits or halt projects. They could only send the review back to the agency.

Certainty across administrations

The bill bars agencies from revoking, suspending, or altering permits in effect on or after September 16, 2026. The exceptions are court orders, violations of law, fraud, urgent threats based on new information, and requests from the permit holder. If an agency cannot prove an exception applies, developers can recover legal fees, delay costs, and 25–50% of project costs incurred to date. Separately, developers can sue if an administration shows a pattern of disparate treatment against a type of energy project, with damages of 50–100% of expected construction costs. The bill lists 46 project types, including wind, solar, oil, gas, nuclear, and transmission. These provisions address the top request in the Crux survey: predictable outcomes.

Endangered Species Act and Clean Water Act

The bill cuts formal ESA consultation from 90 to 60 days and enables states with enough legal, financial, and staffing capacity to take over ESA consultations. Developers in the Crux survey described ESA consultations that delayed projects by six to nine months.

State Section 401 water quality reviews would be limited to whether a project meets Clean Water Act standards and capped at one year. States would need clear and convincing evidence to deny certification.

Transmission, interconnection, and geothermal

The bill strengthens Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) backstop siting authority by removing the requirement that lines fall within a Department of Energy corridor. It requires regional and interregional transmission planning, allocates costs to the customers who benefit, and bans federal right of first refusal. Utilities would have to use advanced transmission technologies where benefits exceed costs, and the bill directs FERC to automate and speed up interconnection studies.

Data centers of 20 megawatts (MW) or more would cover the full incremental cost of the generation, storage, transmission, and distribution built to serve them.

For geothermal, the bill extends oil and gas NEPA streamlining to drilling permits and sets 30-day deadlines for the Bureau of Land Management to review and act on applications.

Implications for clean energy developers, investors, and lenders

For developers

Fixed review and litigation timelines could make schedules easier to plan and reduce permitting-driven cost increases, which 58% of surveyed developers put at 6– 10%.

For investors and lenders

Permitting delays push back commercial operation dates with significant impacts for financing. This bill would:

• Set a 150-day litigation deadline, giving underwriters a defined point after which litigation risk drops.
• Curtail courts’ ability to vacate permits over NEPA and NHPA violations, so permitted projects could generally proceed while agencies correct flawed reviews.
• Protect permits from revocation across administrations, and let developers recover delay costs and 25–50% of project costs incurred if an agency revokes a permit without justification.
• Exempt non-federal projects from NEPA review when their only federal involvement is a loan or loan guarantee.

What's next?

The negotiators expect conversations to continue as their colleagues review the text and offer amendments. The Senate plans to vote on the bill after the midterm elections. The bill would then need to pass the House before going to the President’s desk for signature.

While the White House has signaled its support for the bill, it signaled a strong preference for votes before the midterm elections. Given the delay, prospects for enactment remain uncertain. The most contentious issue in the negotiations — whether the bill would limit executive branch authority to block certain clean energy projects — remains open.

In 2024, Senators John Barrasso (R-WY) and Joe Manchin (D-WV) reached agreement on a bipartisan permitting reform bill that had widespread support but did not receive a vote before the election. A vote never materialized in the lame duck after the Republicans swept Congress and the White House. The midterm results this November could shape whether this package follows the same path.

Crux will continue to monitor the bill. To keep up with the latest insights and changes affecting clean energy project finance, subscribe to our newsletter.

To read more about the challenges that current federal permitting processes pose to the buildout of clean energy, download our whitepaper: The Impact of Federal Permitting on Clean Energy Development.