In Major Win For Nuclear Energy, Nearly Half Of Senate Democrats Join GOP To Advance Permitting Overall

The Senate voted 73-25 on Monday evening to invoke cloture and open debate on the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act (BAAJA), the sweeping permitting overhaul written by Republicans Shelley Moore Capito and Mike Lee with Democrats Martin Heinrich and Sheldon Whitehouse.Supporters were hoping for 15 to 20 Democrats, good for around 70 votes, and TD Cowen had cut its odds of success to about 25% from 40%.Instead, 51 Republicans, 21 Democrats and one independent voted yes. That's 22 of the 47 senators who caucus with Democrats, nearly half, backing a bill Trump has endorsed.Piper Sandler's policy team boils the nearly 500-page bill down to four parts: permit deadlines and limits on yanking permits, a narrower NEPA, more FERC power over transmission lines and data center rules:Including a limit of no more than 2 years for federal decisions on environmental approvals and restraints on agencies’ abilities to withdraw permits once granted.Amending the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by reducing the scope of its applicability, i.e. who can sue and on what grounds, and shortening the litigation window.Accelerating the buildout of transmission lines by enhancing FERC’s backstop authority, which gives the federal government more authority to approve major lines and helps projects move through the permitting process much faster.On data centers, the bill is a step up from the Ratepayer Protection Act in that it forces more energy behind the meter and establishes rules to ensure data centers are responsible for energy costs until all incremental costs are fully recovered (even after contract terminations).Shutting the courthouse doorOne of the most important changes involves stripping environmental activist groups of their favorite weapon.Today, most NEPA challenges have six years to be filed. BAAJA cuts that to 150 days, and only people who commented during the review and can show direct harm get standing.Even a winning NEPA challenge gets a remand "without vacatur or issuance of an injunction," per the Bipartisan Policy Center, so the project keeps moving while the agency fixes its paperwork.Sue-and-delay activists don't need to win in court, and they often know they won't. They just need to tie a project up until financing costs pile up and investors walk away. A 150-day window with no injunctions takes that weapon away.Data centers get the bill, againData centers already agreed to this in an informal way with the Ratepayer Protection Pledge pushed by Trump.The BAAJA bill pushes for harder requirements to actually enforce it, considering some recent pushback data center operators have exhibited with actually paying for the associated grid upgrades.The September text made data centers and crypto miners drawing 20 MW or more pay the full cost of the generation, storage, transmission and distribution built to serve them. The weekend rewrite "expands ratepayer protections to data centers of all sizes," per BPC.They'd also pay for the existing grid on top of new upgrades, a "double tap" that FERC's 1994 pricing policy doesn't allow, and stay on the hook even if they exit a contract early.Behind the meter until the grid catches upPiper's read is that the bill "forces more energy behind the meter," and states could even require data centers to bring their own generation.Pay twice for a grid that can't connect you for years, or build your own power plant?Goldman already sees behind-the-meter supplying 25% of all data centers by 2030. The median power project built last year waited more than five years from interconnection request to operation, per Lawrence Berkeley National Lab.As we reported in March, PJM said the Three Mile Island restart might not get full deliverability until 2031, at a plant that fed the same grid until 2019.Fully connecting a large data center "can take 5 to 10 years," a16z's Ryan McEntush wrote last month, but "every site I'm aware of intends to connect to the grid as soon as it can."Until grid owners and operators can bolt on new plants and big loads in under five years, behind-the-meter will be the default for anyone who can afford it.Four House nuclear bills along for the rideThe weekend rewrite also added a nuclear title folding in four of the six bills that cleared House Energy and Commerce in September without a single "no" vote, per a summary from Heinrich's office.They scrap the mandatory hearing on uncontested reactor and enrichment licenses, let enrichment plants start building before getting an NRC license, raise senior NRC pay and make DOE announce nuclear facility actions.Fuel recycling (the REFUEL Act) and an NRC advisory committee bill didn't make it.The House didn't wait. On Monday night it passed the REFUEL Act 397-2 and the enrichment bill 394-3. As we wrote earlier, nuclear is the one energy source Washington still agrees on.What still has to happenThe final Senate vote likely slips to next week, after the Veterans Day break. Amendments come first, including one to strip the historic preservation changes that Nevada's Catherine Cortez Masto says must go before she backs final passage.Then it goes to the still-Republican House, which has until the new Congress is seated on Jan. 3. Hakeem Jeffries, the likely next Speaker, says it's "still under review."Piper's Oct. 28 note gave the bill 50/50 odds of being signed this year, above the roughly 40% in betting markets, because its Democratic negotiators want it done in the lame duck.The big risks are Trump meddling with offshore wind, House Republicans lacking ownership, Democrats renegotiating after a strong midterm, and a calendar jammed by the Dec. 11 funding deadline and an Iran war supplemental.Two are already flashing. Hours after the White House endorsed the bill, Trump said he won't approve wind turbines even if it becomes law, adding, "The bill hasn't been fully negotiated." And Democrats got their sweep.Monday's vote says nearly half of Senate Democrats would rather take the win now.