NJ Senator Andy Kim and other Dems voted to bring the Bipartisan Affordability and Jobs Act (BAAJA) to cloture, meaning the Senate is currently considering, debating, and amending the bill. At first, this seemed like premature capitulation to a bill that President Trump claims will help him expand fossil fuels and data centers. Progressive groups like Indivisible (at least, the New Jersey Bluesky account) oppose BAAJA and environmental groups like Earth Justice criticize it (see also). So this bill is overall bad, right?

Who supports BAAJA?

Not so fast. First, the environmental movement is split on BAAJA. NRDC registers a number of major concerns, but chooses not to oppose it yet; instead, they "will be seeking improvements in the coming weeks and will take a position on the bill before a floor vote. "

Progressive groups are also split. On November 9, execs from the Center for Public Enterprise,1 Groundwork Collaborative, and Roosevelt Institute wrote to "Senate Staff" in support of BAAJA, specifically citing its "two major provisions that will ensure data centers cannot squeeze residential and commercial ratepayers in their rush to acquire electricity." They conclude, "This is an opportunity we cannot pass up." They also cite a white paper from Grid Strategies, a "power sector consulting firm", which estimates:

$55 billion in transmission costs could be collected from data centers over ten years due to changes to federal transmission pricing policy—that number represents an additional $35 billion over what data centers may otherwise pay under current policy. [Emphasis theirs.]

Finally, housing, transit groups, clean energy trade groups, and unions support it. The American Public Transportation Association endorsed BAAJA on November 2, claiming it "speeds up environmental reviews, sets clear deadlines, and cuts duplicative paperwork while keeping environmental safeguards in place." A coalition of pro-housing groups wrote to BAAJA's sponsors in support.

Regarding his BAAJA cloture vote, Senator Kim's office said:

I voted yes because we need permitting reform that lowers energy costs for families, speeds up clean energy, and tackles the climate crisis our kids will inherit. This bill isn’t perfect though. We need a robust amendment process to improve it before the final vote.

I see no issue with considering, debating, and amending this bill. NRDC seems to agree with me. And this might be our only chance for a long time to get this done.

Why not wait?

The exceedingly excellent Volts newsletter just dropped a discussion of the latest iteration of BAAJA, as of November 11, after a slew of "manager's amendments" that addressed some concerns. The host and guest address the strategic question: if Dems kill BAAJA now, will they get another chance to do permitting reform right in the next Congress? It's worth quoting their responses at length:

David Roberts: If I could sharpen that slightly, just for context: you can’t do permitting reform through reconciliation. You have to go through regular order. Unless you’re going to kill the filibuster — which is a whole separate question, and I very much doubt they’re going to do it right now for this — you need 60 votes in the Senate. And that’s even assuming you get a transmission-only bill with 56 Democrats and independents united on it, which I keep telling people is not a sure thing at all. We just elected a bunch of moderates and Blue Dogs.
Daniel Palken: Yeah, John Fetterman and Mary Peltola are not where Jeff Merkley and Ed Markey are. The caucus is diverse.
David Roberts: They don’t necessarily want a clean-only bill. They like oil and gas and want these concessions to oil and gas. So even in the fantastical scenario where you get 56 Democrats and independents on the same page, you then need four Republican senators who will vote for a transmission-only bill to grant the new Democratic Congress a giant historic victory. Who are those four Republicans? I keep asking people over and over again: Who are the Republicans who are going to vote for a transmission-only bill and give Democrats a big win in their new Congress? No one has an answer.
Daniel Palken: There’s actually a fifth, because there’s Donald Trump. Even if you could pass a bill through the Senate, Donald Trump has no interest in signing that, and his administration and White House have said transparently, “We have no interest in signing that or anything close to that.” So even if you abolished the filibuster, it would be an entirely symbolic exercise for the next two years, because there’s still a Republican president in office. If you’re having the conversation about whether Democrats can do it alone, you’re only talking about 2029 and beyond.
David Roberts: Say you get to 2029, everything goes well, and you get more Democratic senators — a filibuster-proof majority, a Dem trifecta, a Dem president. Well, if you have that, you can do whatever you want, including improving whatever you passed this year. You could take anything you don’t like about this bill and revise it. You can do whatever you want if you’ve got 60 votes. But in the meantime, why not get started building?

tl;dr: Fix BAAJA as best as we can, pass it now, and revise it after 2028. I agree. Don't ding Andy Kim for pursuing this worthy path.