Senate Permitting Deal Makes Data Centers Pay Full Transmission Costs, Then Waits for the Midterms

Four senators announced a bipartisan permitting deal in Washington on September 30. They introduced it as the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act of 2026. The sponsors are Mike Lee of Utah, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Martin Heinrich of New Mexico and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island. The bill rewrites the federal environmental review and permitting process. It also forces data centers to pay their fair share by requiring them to pay for all of their associated transmission costs, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee said. Modeling for the bill’s supporters put the reforms at almost 100 gigawatts of added wind, solar and battery storage by 2035. The Senate will not vote on it until after the November midterm elections.

The four senators control both committees that write permitting law. Lee chairs Energy and Natural Resources and Heinrich is its ranking member. Capito chairs Environment and Public Works and Whitehouse is its ranking member.

Greenline Insights modeled the bill for the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. The study covered four grid regions that serve more than half the country. It put the reforms at almost 100 gigawatts of added wind, solar and battery storage, plus nearly 40 GW of added interregional transmission capacity.

The same study found a roughly $7 billion reduction in the cost of delivering electricity by 2035, measured against a business-as-usual case. That number is net of $1.9 billion in new transmission investment. Residential electricity bills would fall by about $1.1 billion.

The bill orders regional grid operators and utilities to streamline how they plan and permit power lines. It requires the use of advanced transmission technologies that expand the capacity of new and existing grids. It also rewrites a section of the Federal Power Act. That change widens FERC’s authority to permit major interstate lines when state regulators stall or reject a project.

Permitted projects would keep their permits absent extraordinary circumstances, violations of law, or a court order. Senate Democrats had made that kind of protection a condition of their support. Interior Department and Pentagon policies have blocked renewable energy permits from advancing.

Whitehouse said the question of whether the administration returns to regular order is still unresolved. The White House pushed to get elements of its voluntary ratepayer protection pledge for data center developers into the deal, Latitude Media reported.

Why It Matters

The data center cost provision is the part with teeth for ratepayers. A separate ratepayer protection bill cleared the House this month, and Senate Democrats called it toothless. This bill writes the same principle into a package both parties say they want.

For transmission developers the Federal Power Act rewrite matters more. A wider federal permit route for interstate lines moves leverage away from any single state that refuses a project.

The timing is the catch. Nothing moves until after November, and the modeled savings assume a bill that passes and reforms that hold. A bipartisan permitting deal came together in 2024 and went nowhere.

Sources

• U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee
• Canary Media
• Latitude Media

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