A bipartisan group of US Senate lawmakers on Sept. 30 released the long-awaited infrastructure bill enabling reform legislation that congressional leaders hope to pass shortly after the Nov. 3 midterm elections. The House passed the SPEED Act, its permit reform bill, in December 2025.
While the House would have to negotiate a compromise with the Senate-passed version, Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Ranking Member Sheldon Whitehouse (DR.I.) told attendees at Climate Week events in New York City on Sept. 22, “I hope that shortly after the election, we can have votes on the manager’s amendment to our law and get support for our bill passed.”
The Senate lawmakers who negotiated the deal with the administration, in addition to Whitehouse, were committee chairwoman Shelly Moore Capito (RW.Va.), Energy and Natural Resources Committee chairman Mike Lee (R-Utah) and ranking member Martin Heinrich (DN.M.).
They note that they expect to see changes in the version of the bill in the coming weeks. One unresolved issue is whether the administration will support accelerated permitting for renewable energy projects it doesn’t favor, such as offshore wind, according to Frank Maisano, a senior director at the Washington, D.C.-based public affairs firm Bracewell.
Democratic lawmakers want assurances from the White House that “normal order” will be restored for solar and wind projects.
Also, the bill could face roadblocks in the House. politician reports that House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) has said that many Democrats in that chamber think they will have more influence after the midterms, when they anticipate more Democrats being elected and changes in party control.
Allowing reform has been a perennial issue in Congress for a period of years, but the most recent efforts by former Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Sen. John Barasso (R-Wyo.) in 2024 were unsuccessful.
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Whitehouse notes that there is now strong bipartisan support for reform with stronger demand for energy infrastructure, much of which is driven by data center construction. .
“The environmental case for quality permit reform is that there is massive, massive market demand for clean, low-cost electrons,” which environmentalists and Democrats have largely supported, he said in remarks at Climate Week.
Capito said in a statement that the changes agreed upon during negotiations between lawmakers and the White House have the potential to “transform our nation’s ability to boost our economy and drive future growth, while continuing to protect the land, water and wildlife we all love.”
The bill would shorten the deadline for environmental reviews of the project, as well as the period in which legal challenges could be filed against new projects. It would also allow more transmission to be built quickly by giving the federal government more authority to approve major interstate power lines and allowing transmission applications to be processed concurrently with state reviews.
The bill would also require regional and interregional transmission planning that takes into account where new infrastructure is needed and plans ahead for future electricity demand.
The legislation also includes protections sought by Democrats. It would establish a new National Historic Preservation Act consultation process that would run concurrently with National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) reviews, with a defined time limit, and give tribes a voice in the process to evaluate how projects affect historic and cultural resources.
The bill also prevents the US Environmental Protection Agency from preemptively or retroactively removing land from the Clean Water Act’s water quality certification process and creates a single fund to clean up abandoned hard rock mines.
The response to the introduction of the Senate bill was largely positive and bipartisan.
Nathaniel Keohane, president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, said in a statement that lawmakers have an opportunity to pass “long-lasting, lasting legislation that will make it easier to build new transmission lines and connect energy to the grid.” He added: “Energy project investors and developers will be able to count on their permits once granted, and these projects will benefit from faster and better coordinated environmental reviews that maintain meaningful environmental and community protections.
American Petroleum Institute President Mike Sommers called the bipartisan agreement a “generational” opportunity to enact reforms, he said in a statement. “The bipartisan package would modernize NEPA, reduce duplicative reviews and unnecessary litigation, and provide more security for critical projects. Congress should seize this moment and finish the job, making it easier to build the infrastructure America needs.”
Sara Chieffo, senior vice president of government affairs for the League of Conservation Voters, was more cautious in her response. “This is significant and complex legislation, and we will take time to analyze and understand its full impacts… [and] assess whether and how our ability to significantly and rapidly scale affordable clean energy solutions, build a modern and resilient grid, and slow the explosive growth of dirty data centers and gas-fired power plants to address skyrocketing energy costs, meet growing demand, and address climate change.
