A few days have passed since that crazy election night when, I could not even keep up with seeing that Blue design on the TV screen come up literally for every race. The large leads, decisive leads, and eventual Blue wins just kept coming in early and they never stopped all night. I honestly forgot to even look up, let alone bring up, the issue with regard to the gerrymandering and redistricting from the last couple years. That also did not work in any of those redistricts but maybe one. Even those district change ups were won by Democrats. Nothing though, can be funnier than the Lauren Boebert campaign strategy as a whole. She left one district after winning by only 500 votes. She is now poised to lose in the race in the new district she is in while the guy that filled her shoes in the old district has won that race where she had her old position.

I also asked what is going to happen from now until January 3rd. One thing was answered when President Donald J. Trump appointed Stephen Miller the White House Chief of Staff. Trump, therefore, doubled down on sticking with his overall game plan to continue to do what he wants for the next two years. He now has Miller as a great buffer for him.

In the meantime, a Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act (BAAJA) was written by four senators, 2 from both parties. It is indeed a 417-page bill, so it takes a bit of reading, but the plan in that bill is to speed up pipelines, power lines, mines, and data centers. It was introduced on September 30th.

I explained in my so-called op-ed that is about another op-ed the idea of mandating covering the energy by using solar panels on the roofs of all data centers. Click here, because the energy is sustainable if you use it for the surrounding areas or your own energy grid. Since the Democrats will be taking over Congress on January 3rd, the White House wants a vote on it before the end of the year.

Regardless, this not an affordability bill and nor is it even an energy bill. This is a bill to help the gas and oil industry while also trying to cover electricity costs for data centers, but not in the way that I describe. I am pretty sure it wants to use the gas and oil industry to almost subsidize or be subsidized from it. That is why they want it fast tracked through the Senate this year and not next year. This has nothing to do with the people.

The authors of it, Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Mike Lee (R-UT), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), all say that the deal may not be this good again come next year and that is as good as it gets. I’ll go a step a further, it would be great for certain industries and some of the companies in it. But again, this does not help the people’s affordability issues.

All this bill does is help them cut through bureaucratic red tape while limiting the power of courts and future presidents to block its projects.

The core mechanisms of the bill break down deadlines for Government approvals to a 45-day deadline for them to issue the final permit and if a project has already been approved through a state-level environmental review or has secured federal funding, it can completely skip doing a second, overlapping federal review.

Next, it would fast-track specific energy projects that are exempted from review. Certain power grid upgrades and pipeline expansions would get “statutory exclusions.” They would be able to bypass the lengthy, full environmental review process entirely.

The bill would also allow the filling and dredging of our wetlands which makes it easier to build on or to build near bodies of water without having to get certain permits.

Overall, the bill helps shield companies from being sued beyond 150 days after the permit is issued. Plus, the court is not allowed to stop any of the construction process if it finds an error with regard to any documents filed.

Now, the court can stop work because of an infraction, and any environment agency can sue any time after the permits are issued.

Last, that this bill is written in stone, and no administration can ever cancel it, and its energy projects, just because of politics.

To say the least, not only is this not a real affordability bill, it also benefits just the corporations that are obviously in the ears of these four senators.

It also mandates expiration dates on environmental protests, for God’s sake, and at the same time, it makes certain that administrative errors can’t affect a project while it is under construction. Like I alluded to above, it keeps any future presidents from taking away any approved infrastructure projects.

Supporters will refer to it as an affordability issue which it is not. Besides adding any jobs during the construction and then ones hired to operate in the data centers, how does what I describe here affect the common folk let alone create jobs?

Energy analysts ironically and considering what industries benefit from it, say the bill does not mention oil and fuel. They agree with us because for a faster grid connection and transmission, solar, wind, storage and gas projects are what thrive. Conversely, bringing more power onto a grid sooner than later helps with prices and costs for the local communities. Slower permits cost more money to construct. It could reduce manufacturing permitting expenses by 35 percent. Estimates say that it would save the industry around 4.2 billion dollars every year.

Regardless, Sheldon Whitehouse described it as a compromise saying it would bring clean, affordable power to the grid while leaving out the part about it being able plunder the Earth for it. Natural Gas is not clean energy.

As for the data center energy and electricity, that infrastructure is easy if you make it sustainable. The other three authors of it seem to be more about expediting projects without as much oversite as possible which to me, is a red flag in itself.

I get that the bureaucracy in many industries is bad and needs to be fixed, but at the same time, I do not trust anyone in Congress right now to do anything for the people first, besides, this smells like the same old thing in our government. And, this bill does not even address the people in any viable way besides saying for everyone to just wait things out, while they deal. And, that everyone will eventually benefit from it. I have heard that so many times before and it is never true.

How does that affect my affordability for eggs and gas right now or even in the next few months?

I cannot believe that after last week, people in congress still want to trick people into the laws being made, and that the creators and authors of these bills do not add in anything to help the people. It is so arrogant, and there are two Democrats who wrote this bill. It is not just Republicans in the pockets of big oil and Silicon Valley. They are not even trying to hide it if you read the bill.

Evidently, the Democratic leaders intend to ask for changes to permitting legislation that strengthen clean energy, safeguards and environmental protections. We should wait for that to happen.

Someone stated that a Senate vote could be as early as next week. They should have to debate it.

Christy Goldfuss of the Natural Resources Defense Council, said “the bill would shield data center clusters and pipelines from having to answer to nearby residents on wetland destruction and local pollution.” Abigail Dillen of Earthjustice Action stated how “it would speed gas pipelines to data centers. Overall, the lack of the ability to sue a company in 150 days, to what the courts can mandate, or not, to overall environmental review and their need for speed are all red flags. This sounds like another way to get control of the laws surrounding an industry where certain people can make a lot of money. Anyone living near data centers by water, would have no time to bring up any groundwater issues given the 45 day frame to do it.

The United States has not been that successful at building large energy and infrastructure projects efficiently. It usually takes years and decades to get nowhere.

All of this depends now on how the rest of the Senate will react, and then the House needs to act quickly before it gets to the POTUS. Can this all be done by next year? We would be able to sense the direction if there is a Senate debate. Will Senate leaders schedule a floor vote during this lame-duck session? It is not the new Congress, therefore, will any Democrats besides these four sponsors back the content that is in the 417 pages? Then the House would need to respond before its session ends. The POTUS can sign it at any time and at the drop of a dime.

All of that would need to happen in the next few weeks.