The House on Thursday passed a bill aimed at speeding up the federal permitting process for energy, mining and other projects.
The vote keeps open a narrow path to permitting reform, which for years has remained out of reach. The Senate is expected to negotiate its own broader package early next year, which will be challenging because divisions remain over issues like Trump’s power to revoke wind and solar permits and how to build more transmission lines.
The House bill, known as the SPEED Act, is focused on changing the National Environmental Policy Act, a bedrock environmental law that requires federal agencies to assess the impacts of projects on air pollution, water quality, and wildlife. The bill would limit the law’s scope and set statutory deadlines for environmental decisions and any lawsuits challenging them.
Until early this week, the bill had the backing from more moderate Democrats and American Clean Power, because it would have blocked the federal government from rescinding completed environmental reviews, permits, leases, and licenses. The provisions were a direct response to Trump’s actions in office this year, including revoking already approved offshore wind permits and slow-walking solar permits.
But ACP and some Democrats pulled their support, after House GOP hardliners won last-minute changes that could allow a president to cancel fully permitted projects.
There’s no chance the SPEED Act in its current form would pass the Senate. Several Senate Democrats have already laid out their several priorities, including ending Trump’s blockade on renewable energy permits.
New urgency and alliances
That said, there’s new urgency to get a deal done, now that the biggest roadblock to building data centers for artificial intelligence is power and the Trump administration is all-in on winning the AI race.
There’s also a relatively new — if shaky — alliance between American Clean Power and the fossil fuel industry. Developers of oil and gas and clean energy want permitting certainty, having been targeted by executive orders by the Biden and Trump administrations, respectively.
The oil and gas, mining, and real estate industries have long argued that their projects get bogged down by bureaucratic NEPA reviews and related litigation that can be filed years after permits are issued. Some renewable energy developers have raised similar concerns, particularly after the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act infused triggered record levels of federal and private investment in the industry.
Meanwhile, climate and environmental groups like Earthjustice and the League of Conservation Voters opposed the House bill, arguing that it’s a “persistent myth” that NEPA reviews are the primary cause of permitting delays.
“The net effect of this proposal is to ensure the environmental review process benefits project sponsors to the detriment of communities and, further, directs courts to ensure this bias persists,” more than 100 groups said in a letter to House Natural Resources Chair Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) in November.
Onward to the Senate
The chances and timing of a Senate deal remain unclear. But Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), during an event in Washington, DC last week, suggested they could strike a deal in the first quarter of 2026. He also signaled a willingness to sacrifice some support from environmental groups.
“I think we’ll probably get it done in the first quarter, maybe even sooner than that, just because there is this unique alignment of self interest,” Hickenlooper said. “Many in the environmental community might not be happy with everything we’re still negotiating. But I think we’re getting closer.”
There is a “unique alignment of self interest” among project developers and climate advocates, he said; the U.S. can’t address climate change without mining more critical minerals or speeding up the deployment of renewable energy projects.
Hickenlooper said both Democrats and Republicans also know they can’t get everything they want, which bodes well for negotiations.
