The Conflict Groups Want This Permitting Bill Dead. That’s Their Business Model.

The Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club and a swarm of allied activist groups are trying to kill the most serious permitting reform bill Congress has taken up in years. They oppose it because it would shrink the bureaucratic rot and litigation veto that keep them in business.

David BlackmonNov 11, 20265 min read

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The Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club and a swarm of allied activist groups are trying to kill the most serious permitting reform bill Congress has taken up in years. They oppose it because it would shrink the bureaucratic rot and litigation veto that keep them in business.

It is no surprise these conflict groups oppose a bill which would help resolve conflicts. These groups exist to preserve and extend conflicts, not to solve them.

On Monday, the Senate voted 73-25 to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to H.R. 2347, the vehicle for the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act of 2026, or BAAJA. That did not pass the bill. It cleared the first 60-vote hurdle. President Trump has already urged every senator to vote yes, and the White House says his advisers would recommend he sign it. Final passage still requires another cloture vote, a Senate floor vote, and a House vote before January.

The conflict groups smelled danger and went to work on Democrats. Before the vote, more than 140 activist organizations wrote Democratic Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico — the bill’s Democratic authors — and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to warn that voting for key provisions “would represent a sweeping betrayal” of their past commitments. Activists protested outside Schumer’s Brooklyn apartment on Friday

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and

again at his Midtown office Monday morning

. The League of Conservation Voters, whose annual scorecard has long been used to whip Democrats on environmental votes,

told lawmakers the bill “poses substantial risks”

and called on them “to find a better balance … whether that can be done this Congress or next.”

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) announced Sunday that it “opposes the bill as currently written.” After the cloture vote, NRDC president Manish Bapna was still demanding rewrites and warning that the bill would “facilitate expanded fossil fuel development.” Sierra Club Executive Director Loren Blackford called the legislation “deeply flawed” and said “the Sierra Club cannot support this legislation” unless it is changed.

And the King of conflict himself, former Vice President Al Gore, weighed in Monday against the bill. He urged the Democratic sponsors “to reconsider their decision to move forward with this legislation,” calling it “an extremely serious mistake” that would “do far more harm than good,” and argued that “we will have a new Congress in January that can strike a far better balance.” Same playbook: stop the bill now, keep the conflict going, and wait for more leverage.

That pressure is why constructive reform is so hard for Democrats especially. The caucus split almost down the middle. Twenty-one Senate Democrats still voted to advance the bill, including Schumer, Whitehouse and Heinrich, along with Independent Angus King. Twenty-three Democrats voted no. Republicans were nearly unanimous, 51-1, with only Sen. Mike Rounds opposed. The conflict groups could not stop the first vote. They are now trying to peel Democrats off before final passage, which still requires 60 votes, and to park the bill until January.

The country cannot afford that delay. American energy demand is rising in every part of the economy — homes, industry, data centers and manufacturing — and the permitting system cannot keep up. In its September outlook, the Energy Information Administration expected U.S. electricity sales of 4,135 billion kilowatthours this year, up almost 2%, with generation at a record 4,368 billion kilowatthours, driven by data centers and manufacturing.

You cannot meet that demand if those projects take years to approve. The White House Council of Economic Advisers notes that recent environmental impact statements have averaged roughly 1,700 pages and 4.2 years to complete. That is a veto by delay. CEA estimates that BAAJA’s enforceable two-year deadlines would add $82 billion to $164 billion a year in economic output.

The bill, introduced by Republican West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, Heinrich, Republican Utah Sen. Mike Lee and Whitehouse, would put real deadlines on reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act, limit the lawsuit treadmill used to stop projects, and require data centers to pay their own way. That is why the bill needs to become law.

A permitting law that puts projects on a clock and shuts down the litigation veto threatens the business model. Solving the problem would put these groups out of the problem-creating business. The Senate should ignore them and finish the job.

David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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