BAAJA Blast: What The Senate Permitting Bill Means For Transmission Developers

Preface

This is the first post in a four-part “BAAJA Blast” series covering the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act of 2026—a Senate bill proposing significant reforms to federal permitting and environmental review processes. Released in late September, the 417-page bill reaches well beyond its permitting heading, with provisions addressing broader questions of national energy policy.

In this series, we will take a sector-by-sector look at how the bill’s provisions would affect specific technologies and industries—and what they could mean in practice for developers, investors, large energy users, and other market participants. The series is organized around four areas: (1) transmission; (2) offshore wind; (3) data centers and large loads; and (4) distributed energy resources and virtual power plants. Throughout the series, we will also highlight the bill’s cross-cutting changes to environmental and historic preservation review where they bear on each sector.