archaeogeist.bsky.social

This article is an important corrective to the claim that Federal environmental laws are holding back clean-energy development. Their empirical finding: "environmental reviews and permitting rarely delay or block utility-scale renewable energy projects." Link in next tweet.

The fact that BAAJA makes AI data centers pay for their grid connections & protects energy permits (renewables + fossil fuels) is irrelevant to the fact that BAAJA streamlines Trump's ability to site data centers on public lands.

The Senate permitting deal—BAAJA—does nothing to address these immensely harmful transgressions and in fact makes them far worse by eroding bedrock protections afforded by the Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act, National Environmental Policy Act, and National Hotoric Preservation Act.

The People’s Environmental Justice Caucus, founded by @reprashida.govpeeps.us, @repsummerlee.bsky.social, & @adelitaforcongress.bsky.social, released the following statement: tlaib.house.gov/posts/people... For more info & to take action against the BAAJA, visit: climatejusticealliance.org/baaja/

I'm not the first to point it out, but. #BAAJA is a silver bullet to defeating many of the checks against this administration. Sure, more fossil fuels. Also more roads in parks, more private prisons, more data centers, and more ICE detection centers BAAJA would be trumps greatest victory.

This is a well intentioned essay from the always thoughtful @sammyroth.bsky.social. But it deeply misunderstands what is happening with the permitting debate, how that debate has evolved since the Inflation Reduction Act's passage, and why BAAJA is so fiercely contested.

@benraylujan.bsky.social house representatives @fernandez.house.gov and @repstansbury.bsky.social oppose the disastrous BAAJA bill. Will you stand with New Mexicans in opposing this bill, or will you side with data centers in severing tribal rights and destroying our natural and culture heritage?

@heinrich.senate.gov you're an absolute disgrace to the state of New Mexico

@repstansbury.bsky.social stands with New Mexico tribes and forcefully rejects #BAAJA: “I cannot support any bill that undermines Tribal sovereignty and consultation, the rights of our communities to have their voices heard, or which undermines the protection of natural and cultural resources."

Still inktober/drawlloween/whatever. Working on copying Mike Mignola (poorly). Also, yeah, it's the boss I had the hardest time against.

Proponents may (hypothetically) ignore NEPA already, opting for a strategy where they gamble on whether or not agency employees catch them in the act. This results in delayed permitting while agencies sort out new analysis and mitigation. BAAJA would reward companies for this behavior.

“As drafted, it could benefit fossil fuel, mining, data center, & other industrial projects more than clean energy. It could…limit agencies’ ability to address newly discovered harms, constrain future pollution regulation, create large taxpayer-funded corporate handouts” www.nrdc.org/media/nrdc-a...

10. BAAJA = Billionaires Ask, Agencies Just Approve.

Dark Angels Chaplain

"The Senate's bipartisan permit reform bill would upend the National Environmental Policy Act and also weaken the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, and the National Historic Preservation Act." Legal analysis from Michael Gerrard, Columbia Law scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scho...

The lame-duck Congress is trying to hand Elon Musk a trillion-dollar windfall with #BAAJA. If Musk's companies had traditional P/E valuations, his fortune would be reduced by over 90%. #BAAJA's passage is critical to keeping the AI bubble-and Musk's personal wealth-inflated.

New study: Pollution from industries in Louisiana's Cancer Alley, include oil refining and petrochemical processing, increases risks of congenital heart defects for infants born in nearby communities. BAAJA, the federal permitting bill, would make it easier to build such polluting facilities.

The environment does not recognize a political party. People in Washington are legislating away the western US, and what little public green space is left in the east. And political advisers are clapping along like 3 year olds at the idea of massive solar fields in fragile habitat

Anyone who thinks it's fine to sacrifice frontline communities and ecosystems, and gut bedrock environmental laws, to build a few more clean energy projects, has truly lost the plot.

The Senate permitting deal is Nerd Reich legislation.

The Senate permitting deal is a fight over power, not policy, designed to lock in a capital-friendly political economy and thereby hobble future policy optionality that: ➡️ Directly challenges tech/fossil fuel wealth & power; & ➡️ Is grounded in ecology & community.

It just doesn’t matter what Jesse Jenkins thinks the permitting certainty provisions mean. What matters is how this poorly-constructed, ill-advised concept will be weaponized by tech & fossil fuel industry lawyers and what Trump appointed judges decide permitting certainty means.

#BAAJA From @heinrich.senate.gov is one more example, in a long list of them, where the democratic party is sacrificing minority rights in favor of industrial investment. A move that always results in a loss of trust in the party. Ironically, that trust is what Heinrich built himself on

Stanford's Deborah Sivas explains why the permitting reform bill's language limiting NEPA review to "direct harm," and giving developers powerful new remedies, is so damaging.

The pro-permitting deal argument is predicated on years of orchestrated bad-faith argument advanced by fossil fuels & Abundance folk to scapegoat bedrock environmental laws. And the building boom Americans are witnessing will, for the foreseeable future, be utterly dominated by AI data centers.

Far too many believe that Fossil Fuels = Bad and Renewables = Good. Sacrificing our regulatory protections isn't going to make magic solar fields that save the ice caps. It's going to clear the way for bad actors to develop at their leisure. And environmental scientists and tribes will hurt for it

Re Permitting Reform You never hear from the people that actually process permits. Can it be long? Yes. Do you know why? It isn't legislation. It's industry indecision and incompetence nearly every time. BAAJA from @heinrich.senate.gov does nothing about this but it does cut THPOs and SHPOs out

Tribal organizations betrayed by @heinrich.senate.gov come out strong against #BAAJA, calling for Title III of the industrial-construction fast-tracking bill to be stripped and for negotiations on rewriting laws that protect their core rights to include tribal nations. hillheat.com/files/517/Jo...

Bryan from Resident Evil (2026)

A reminder that the Senate permitting deal would hobble the power of a future POTUS to put in place a robust, ambitious climate action plan—one that transitions the U.S. from fossil fuels to renewables, respects people and place, and doesn’t cede our future to tech, energy, and finance oligarchs..

Let's not forget, folks: American Petroleum Institute CEO Mike Sommers told House Republicans that "This is literally what we've been asking for for over a decade, and it is a generational opportunity to get permitting reform done."

The permitting deal would fundamentally reconfigure the energy and environmental protection landscape. With GHG costs/benefits predicated on speculative assumptions/bets such that modeling is virtually impossible. And yet the Senate wants to bulldoze this through in a lame duck session. It's 🤯.

“At least 26 senators, more than a quarter of the chamber, hold data center-linked investments … Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island whose data center investments total between $2.1 million and $8.6 million, takes the number one spot.” 👀

Resident Evil (2026) was a blast If you're a new RE fan, go see it. If you're an old RE fan, go enjoy it. If you don't like RE, but you like horror, go have a ball. If you don't like horror, maybe skip this one.

Martin Heinrich's bill is written to benefit oil and gas companies (which rake in billions in profits while the government to cleans up orphan wells and data centers (which are sped through the permitting already. The worst part is he thinks his constituents are dumb enough to believe his lies.