BAAJA, Line by Line

What the Senate permitting bill actually says, what it changes in federal law, and who wins and loses. An objective but skeptical reading of all 417 pages of S. 5653, cited to page and line.

Video series

Four ways to watch the bill

A plain-English read of the text for a general audience, a seven-minute test of the data-center question, a section-by-section briefing for practitioners, and our first look from the day the bill was released. Each video uses the report's charts and maps and puts the bill text on screen.

General audience

Blasting through BAAJA, S. 5653: What the Permitting Bill Actually Says

Read the bill with us, in its own words, cited to page and line. The thread: who gets the final say over the schedule, the lawsuit, and the permit, and how often the bill hands that pen to whoever holds the permit.

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Who runs the clock?
If you want to object
If you hold the permit (Project Certainty)
Water, wildlife, land, and history
Is this a data-center bill?
A text that isn't finished

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General audience · the data-center question

Is the Senate Permitting Bill a Data-Center Bill? Five Tests

One concern runs through the debate: that the bill's real effect is to speed up data centers and the power serving them while weakening review. We test it five ways against the text, with what fits and what cuts against each time.

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Test 1: Does it compress the clocks?
Test 2: Who decides?
Test 3: Narrower review?
Test 4: Are data centers the winners?
Test 5: Are the protections weaker than advertised?
The scorecard and our verdict

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Policy staff, regulators, utilities, developers

BAAJA (S. 5653) for Practitioners: NEPA, Courts, FERC, Data Centers

A section-by-section briefing: for each change, the current law it amends, the rules and FERC dockets it meets, where the text came from, and the outstanding legal questions it leaves open.

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Architecture and lineage
NEPA after Seven County
Judicial review across 22 provisions
Water, wildlife, and historic preservation
Project Certainty
Transmission and FERC
Large loads and the data-center cost floor
What the bill leaves to states and towns
The implementation calendar
Drafting defects and open questions

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First look · Michigan and Texas

The 2026 Senate Permitting Bill, Explained: Who Pays, and Who Decides?

Our first look, released with the bill: the land, the courts, the costs, and the fuel, with the Michigan and Texas comparison. The companion page is the September 30 analysis.

Watch on YouTube Read the September 30 analysis

Cover of the report: BAAJA, Line by Line, over a dusk landscape with a lit transmission corridor running toward a data center.

Introduced text · S. 5653 · October 2026

An objective but skeptical review (132 pages)

The Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act of 2026, read section by section: what each provision says, the current law it amends, who is affected, and the outstanding legal questions it leaves open. About three quarters of the report is straight explanation; the rest tests one concern against the text, that the bill's real effect is to speed up data centers and the power supply that serves them. Built from a 2,282-node knowledge graph of the bill, current law, and agency activity, with every bill quote confirmed against the 417-page text by page and line.

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417 pages

Two divisions, seven titles, 71 sections, about 59,000 words

150 days

To sue over a NEPA, Clean Water Act, ESA, energy, or historic-preservation decision

20 MW

Data-center floor: new loads this size pay the grid costs they cause

180 clocks

Deadlines for agencies, courts, states, and sponsors if it passes

The Short Version

BAAJA is the Senate's permitting deal: a 417-page bill that makes federal approvals faster and harder to undo. It puts short clocks on agencies and on lawsuits, limits what a court can do when a challenger wins, freezes issued permits with Treasury money behind the freeze, builds a federal backstop for big power lines, and makes large data centers pay for the grid costs they cause. It narrows state water reviews, historic preservation reviews, and endangered species reviews along the way. It is technology-neutral on its face. It has not had a hearing, and its text is expected to change.

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito introduced it on September 30, 2026, with Sens. Mike Lee, Sheldon Whitehouse, and Martin Heinrich, the chairs and ranking members of the two Senate committees that own the subject. As of October 1, the only recorded action is referral to committee. Capito's stated goal, a claim, is for it to be "the first vote when we come back" after the November 3 election. If it does not pass before the 119th Congress ends in January 2027, it dies.

The bill moves leverage from people outside a permit to the people who hold or want one, using three tools. Clocks: agencies get deadlines that only the project sponsor can enforce in court, and challengers get 150 days to sue. Remedies: for a NEPA violation, a court may only send the approval back to the agency, and the project can keep going while the agency fixes it. Certainty: agencies may not pull permits already issued except in five narrow cases, and a sponsor who wins in court collects 25 to 50 percent of its costs from the Treasury's Judgment Fund.

Is this a data-center bill?

Partly. BAAJA speeds up the lines, pipelines, and plants data centers depend on: it compresses clocks, moves water-permit and transmission decisions from states toward federal agencies and courts, and limits what a winning challenger can get. It never requires anyone to study what a wave of large new loads does to emissions, water, or nearby communities. But it does almost nothing to speed the data centers themselves, and the only sections that name them make them pay more and give states new power over them. Data-center demand is the bill's main source of momentum, not its main beneficiary.

The Concern, Tested Five Ways

No statute states its motive, so the report tests effects. Each claim gets the evidence that fits, the evidence that cuts against it, and what is missing from the text.

Diverging bar chart of five tests of the data-center concern, with evidence that fits on the right and evidence that cuts against on the left, and a verdict for each. — Of five tests, one is supported, three are partly supported, and one is not supported. The fitting evidence is about power supply; the evidence against is about data centers themselves.

1

Speed: compresses review and litigation clocks
Supported
2

Federalization: moves decisions from states, tribes, and expert agencies to federal actors and sponsors
Partly supported
3

Narrower environmental and social review and remedies
Partly supported
4

Data centers and their power supply are specific beneficiaries
Not supported
5

Ratepayer, landowner, and community protections weaker than advertised
Partly supported

The Ten Biggest Changes

Part I covers each of these in the bill's own words, with page and line.

1

NEPA lawsuits get a 150-day clock, a comment requirement, and a remand-only remedy.

Suits must be filed within 150 days, by someone who commented (where comment was offered) and who alleges direct harm, in a federal court of appeals. A winner gets a remand, not an order stopping the project.
2

Issued permits are frozen.

Agencies may not pull permits already issued except in five narrow cases, and a sponsor who wins in court collects 25 to 50 percent of its costs to date from the Treasury's Judgment Fund.
3

FERC “shall” permit major transmission lines when states do not act.

Lines of 230 kV or more in the national interest, anywhere in the country. The statute's own measure of compensation for condemned land is deleted; the Constitution's requirement of just compensation remains.
4

Data centers pay for the grid upgrades their new load causes.

Measured by the utility's estimate and subject to regulators' approval, for loads of 20 MW or more that connect after enactment.
5

State water certification narrows.

Clean Water Act Section 401 review shrinks, and the Environmental Protection Agency's dredge-and-fill veto gets a fixed window.
6

Historic preservation review moves from regulation into statute.

About 5,700 words of new statute, with a narrower definition of harm.
7

Endangered species consultation gets shorter clocks.

Highway and transit projects in existing rights-of-way are freed from the no-jeopardy duty.
8

Sponsors must approve any extension of a NEPA deadline.

A White House council's ruling in disputes between agencies becomes final and unreviewable.
9

Listed oil, gas, and geothermal activities on federal land leave NEPA.

Many wells lose the federal drilling permit.
10

Energy and minerals suits get a 150-day clock.

Miners may locate as many mill sites as are reasonably necessary.

Who Gains and Who Loses

Gains

Permit holders of every kind, through the freeze and the money.
Transmission developers, pipeline operators, onshore oil and gas operators, geothermal and hydropower developers, and miners.
The Council on Environmental Quality and lead federal agencies, which gain control over schedules and disputes.
Utility customers, who gain protection from data-center grid costs.

Loses

Challengers lose the most: environmental groups, neighbors, and downstream states face shorter clocks, narrower standing, and weaker remedies.
States lose ground as water certifiers; state and tribal preservation officers lose ground in historic preservation review.
Landowners lose the statute's compensation formula for transmission condemnations.
Wind and solar, tribes, counties, and data centers land in the middle, with real gains and real costs.

From the Report

Four of the report's 26 figures. Every chart is built from the data files in the appendix, and each caption states the takeaway.

Bar chart of time to file suit: six years under default law and two under FAST-41, against 150 days for challengers under five BAAJA sections and no stated deadline for seven kinds of sponsor suits. — Part II · Courts and Lawsuits

Challengers' time to sue drops from six years (two under FAST-41) to 150 days, while sponsor suits carry no stated deadline.

Map of the contiguous United States showing data-center project clusters sized by stated gigawatts, counties with accepted moratorium records shaded green, regional grid boundaries, and the ERCOT boundary outlined. — Part VI · Where the Data Centers Are

Data-center projects sized by stated capacity, and counties with accepted local moratorium records, over regional grid boundaries; moratoria cluster in MISO, PJM, and the Southeast (preliminary snapshot, research cutoff Sept. 28, 2026).

Chart of 49 power shifts in the bill, counted by who loses authority, who gains it, and the mechanism. — Part III · Who Decides

Most of BAAJA's 49 power shifts move authority from states, tribes, and expert agencies toward federal permitting agencies, CEQ, FERC, and sponsors, mainly by preemption and deadlines.

Timeline of program deadlines by agency after a hypothetical January 15, 2027 enactment. — Part VIII · If It Passes: The Calendar

On a hypothetical January 15, 2027 enactment, FERC, Interior, and CEQ deadlines stack up in the first two years.

28%

Of the bill's words appeared in an earlier bill or law

36

Drafting defects verified: 7 substantive, 21 ambiguities, 8 cosmetic

58

Public positions logged in the first two days: 35 for, 9 against

1,011

Accepted local data-center moratorium records, in 903 jurisdictions and 45 states

2,282

Nodes in the knowledge graph of the bill, current law, and agency activity

51

Claims checked against the text; none wrong, most needing a caveat

Inside the Report

Nine parts, three front chapters, and two appendices. Each part opens with its bottom line and closes with what it means for data centers.

§

The short version

Front matter: what the bill is, what it does in one paragraph, who gains and loses.
§

Is this a data-center bill?

The concern, broken into five tests, with the evidence that fits and the evidence that cuts against.
§

How we read 417 pages

From the PDF to verified findings, with every claim traceable to page and line.
I

What the Bill Does

Ten changes, in the bill's own words.
II

Courts and Lawsuits

Faster and narrower for challengers; new rights and money for sponsors.
III

Who Decides

Power moves from states, tribes, and expert agencies to sponsors, CEQ, and FERC.
IV

Landowners, Tribes, and the Public

Fewer days to comment, fewer ways to sue, and a missing sentence on compensation.
V

Energy, Data Centers, and Ratepayers

Neutral on its face; specific where it counts.
VI

Where the Data Centers Are

1,038 project groups, 1,011 accepted local moratorium records, and the state rules the bill lands on.
VII

Where It Came From and Who's Talking

A quarter of the bill is borrowed text. The reactions split three ways.
VIII

If It Passes: The Calendar

180 deadlines, most of them with no consequence for missing them.
IX

Drafting Problems and Open Questions

36 defects, 7 that matter, and the questions courts would have to answer.
A

The knowledge graph and model agreement

Appendix.
B

Data, files, and corrections

Appendix.

Read the Full Report

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BAAJA, Line by Line

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Research series

Permitting, power lines, and data centers

7 related analyses from Bommarito Consulting.

How to read this report, and reliance

Bill citations are page and line in the 417-page text released September 30, 2026. Current law is cited to the U.S. Code or the Code of Federal Regulations. Outside facts carry a numbered source. Statements by senators, agencies, companies, and advocacy groups are labeled as claims. Where the meaning of the text is uncertain, the report says so and frames it as an open legal question. The data-center project and moratorium figures are a preliminary snapshot with a research cutoff of September 28, 2026; a moratorium record shows a local action, not that a moratorium is in force. The bill is a proposal and its text is expected to change; quotations and section numbers should be checked against the official text before use in any filing. Nothing here constitutes legal advice.

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