The Senate has advanced a bill whose most consequential clause reaches past the people who wrote it. Senators voted 73-25 on Monday to take up the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act, according to Al Jazeera, in a piece bylined with the Associated Press. Agri-Pulse reports the same count. In its 22 October draft, Roll Call said, the bill carried “limits on actions administrations can take to revoke already-issued permits”. A lame-duck Congress may pass this bill. It has not yet justified that clause.
The bill, Al Jazeera reports, “would overhaul the permitting process for major energy projects.” President Donald Trump backs it: “This Bill is a BIG WIN for U.S. ENERGY INDEPENDENCE and DOMINANCE.” Senator Martin Heinrich, a Democrat, made the case against waiting for the next Congress. Lawmakers who want to lower costs, he said, can act now: “We can do that today,” in Al Jazeera’s account.
That is the strongest form of the argument for the Senate, and most of it holds. A bipartisan majority is a fact, not a defect. The American Petroleum Institute led a letter urging passage in the lame duck, Roll Call recorded. Heinrich reportedly said, according to Common Dreams, that the bill “will age very well over time.” Our reading: the objection that a departing Congress should simply wait proves too much, because it would void every law passed after an election.