If you’re following the hot debate over the bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act of 2026 (BAAJA), you’re probably thinking about howitzers more than usual. As Heatmap reports, John Podesta cuts through the noise and sounds the alarm: Why would Democrats cede more power to President Trump so he can abuse it? Or in other words, don’t give Trump a loaded howitzer!
Over the next two years, BAAJA would create more legal It would allow this president to make corrupt deals and greenlight harmful projects of all kinds, and it would prevent any future president from repairing the damage. People can reasonably differ on long-term projections. But once you know what’s in this bill, it should be clear as glass how BAAJA plays under Trump.
In the short time remaining before the Senate vote, a responsible debate on BAAJA must be real about who runs the country and specific about the immediate dangers that threaten it. are very predictable.
What could go wrong in the next two years if BAAJA is passed?
It is difficult to imagine a president more obsessed with accelerating projects that advance his own interests rather than the public interest. Whether it’s relatively “small” projects, like bulldozing the East Wing for his ballroom, or larger ones — for example, providing $1.6 billion in federal funding to a Kazakh tungsten mine partly owned by his sons — striking deals that enrich the Trump circle is the president’s specialty. More fundamentally, the Trump administration’s strategy is to move fast and break things, and that applies to everything from mass layoffs to mass deportations.
BAAJA would energize this manual in four main ways:
- The bill would allow the President to more quickly and easily grant federal approvals and financial assistance without transparency or scrutiny, through provisions that would significantly limit or even eliminate requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA), and the Clean Water Act (CWA). Notably, the bill would exempt all federal loans, loan guarantees, and other forms of federal financial assistance from NEPA and NHPA review, thereby giving the President the ability to provide federal support that would expedite financing for major capital projects.
- BAAJA would protect Trump’s actions from the many successful lawsuits currently operating to check abuses of power. The bill is designed to make it more difficult to (1) get into court, (2) win, and (3) obtain meaningful relief, and it expressly prohibits judges from issuing injunctions or overturning decisions in NEPA and NHPA cases. Even if a court found that the Trump administration was issuing permits in flagrant violation of NEPA and NHPA, the projects could still move forward. In other words, the Trump administration could violate the law without consequences.
- BAAJA includes numerous provisions that would prevent consideration of new scientific information and data, while significantly increasing deference to federal agencies in setting the scope of their reviews. Taken together, these provisions would legitimize the Trump administration’s efforts to suppress science and exclude consideration of the best available data.
- More generally, the bill’s certainty provisions would make Trump’s authorization decisions irrevocable, with some exceptions.1 The next administration would likely inherit a series of destructive and unpopular projects, and BAAJA would make it extremely financially risky, if not impossible, for the next president to revisit them. To be clear, the damage would not be limited to energy-related projects. Think detention centers, petrochemical complexes, data centers on public land – whatever types of projects appeal to this president.
In short, BAAJA would help President Trump move even faster and break more things, harnessing the promise of high leverage that project certainty represents. Over the next two years, favored industries would race to obtain as many federal approvals as possible.
To imagine what might happen, it’s worth looking back at the president’s executive orders on data centers, oil and gas, mining, logging and Alaska. They vividly convey the scale of this administration’s ambition to leave no acre untouched. Regarding AI and data centers, Executive Order 14318, “Expediting Federal Authorization of Data Center Infrastructure,” outlines the plan for building data centers on public lands, which Interior Secretary Doug Burgum describes this way: “We’re going to ‘map, baby, map’ to figure out where all these resources are, and then we’re going to ‘mine, baby, mine’ so we can ‘build, baby, build’ because we need to build data centers of AI. In the rush to plunder the country, don’t expect any exceptions for special places like the Boundary Waters, the Arctic, or the Chaco Canyon.
Beyond public lands, the “certainty” provisions of the BAAJA apply to any project requiring federal approvals or permits. The oil and gas industry is more than ready to secure federal permits and financing for long-term infrastructure projects, including natural gas pipelines, LNG export terminals and gas-fired power plants. BAAJA would not only provide certainty for individual projects, but would incentivize future administrations to maintain Trump’s pace of authorization. Specifically, the bill creates a right to sue for “disparate treatment” if permit denials and delays increase over a five-year period.
Looking at our record and the growing inventory of bad decisions that we know will happen, it is terrible to imagine how many of them could become irrevocable under BAAJA, and how many people would suffer as a result. I think about the shocking steps the Trump administration has taken to exempt many of the nation’s most dangerous petrochemical plants from pollution control requirements, and I anticipate the “permanent” permits it may issue for the expansion of new complexes in communities where cancer rates are already unconscionable. I imagine the many sacred places that would be sold as tribes are excluded from federal decision-making. At a time when so many Americans feel abandoned by those in power and crushed by mega-corporations, I hope members of Congress consider how this deal will deliver for those who are rightly demanding more transparency, more accountability, and more action.
Meanwhile, the prospect of losing the tools to slow down and stop the cruelest projects should haunt everyone. For example, if NEPA becomes completely ineffective, as it would be under BAAJA, I wonder how state attorneys general and our attorneys at Earthjustice could stop ICE from detaining thousands of people in Amazon-like warehouses, as we have been able to do so far. I wonder if we can even imagine the horrible things this administration will try to do in the two long years ahead of us.
We need a new transmission, as well as a new permit agreement
Many people I deeply respect are pushing for the adoption of BAAJA because its transmission package is truly excellent. At Earthjustice, the biggest bet we have made organizationally is to establish an energy practice to deploy clean energy more quickly. A more livable future depends on the clean energy transition, and that transition depends on grid expansion. That is why my colleagues and I have worked seriously to try to improve the bill. But tinkering around the edges won’t solve BAAJA’s fundamental problem.
Absolutely, we need a path to clean energy, but no deal is worth making if it makes a dire situation worse. In every way, including election interference and the latest deals with Putin, the president reminds us who he is. (Among other things, it is impossible to take his word that he will end his war against the wind, which he is in fact intensifying).
When democracies teeter on the precipice, the most important safeguards are the law and the ability of citizens to go to court and challenge the government that turns against them. All of this is to say that taking down guardrails is a dangerously bad idea.
1. Although there is an exception for court orders that expressly direct agencies to revoke or modify permits, the next administration would not be able to obtain such orders against itself, and for litigants other than project developers, the BAAJA is expressly designed to make it much more difficult, and in some cases impossible, to obtain such orders as discussed in (1) ↩.
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