Walker River Paiute Tribe flag blowing in breeze. (Photo: Jeniffer Solis/Nevada Current)
A Trump-backed permitting revision bill is getting blowback from a growing coalition of Nevadans, who say its provisions will accelerate the buildout of new fossil fuel projects for data centers and cut tribes out of the regulatory process.
The Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act (BBAAJA) is a wide-ranging package aimed at easing the construction of new energy infrastructure and mines by rolling back environmental, judicial, Tribal, and historic preservation protections.
If passed, the bill would weaken certain provisions in the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the National Historic Preservation Act.
Nevada Democratic Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen were among 19 Democrats voting with the Republican majority Monday to advance the bill, arguing it would help hasten the approval of renewable energy projects, bring down utility costs and require data centers to pay for the grid upgrades they trigger.
But conservation groups warned the regulatory rollbacks would apply to all projects on public lands – everything from clean energy projects to fossil fuel pipelines built to fuel data centers.
Under the bill, federal land managers would be allowed to evaluate more projects on public lands using a less vigorous environmental analysis that requires a lower threshold for approval.
“This means that data centers and gas power plants would almost certainly be analyzed using” lower-level of analysis, said Patrick Donnelly, the Great Basin Director of the Center for Biological Diversity.
Once approved, projects would also be more difficult to stop. The bill would drastically reduce judicial review for projects on public lands, including limiting judges’ ability to halt construction on public lands for environmental violations, even if it would cause imminent and irreparable harm.
Provisions in the bill would prevent future administrations from revoking permits for projects that have already been approved. In practice, conservation groups say that could embolden the Trump administration to accelerate AI data center construction on public lands.
“If Trump tries to ram through a bunch of data centers on public lands in the next 2 years, and we get a new Democratic administration for whom that is not a priority, they would be hamstrung and unable to change course. It would lock in public lands data center approvals forever,” Donelly said.
Nevada became the first state to get a data center approved on public land in July, but the project was ultimately rescinded following a lawsuit from the Center for Biological Diversity and Boulder City.
Donelly said, if passed, the environmental rollbacks in the permitting reform bill would “dramatically impact the permitting of Townsite Data Center” adjacent to Boulder City, “allowing the agencies to run roughshod over these laws while hobbling the enforcement mechanism that is meant to keep them honest.”
In a statement after her vote to advance the legislation, Cortez Masto criticized some of the bill’s provisions, saying she would not vote for final passage if changes to the National Historic Preservation Act — which protects historic properties and cultural resources — were not removed.
Cortez Masto, Rosen among Democrats voting to advance overhaul of energy project permitting
Native rights advocates in Nevada are adamantly opposed to that portion of the bill.
Beverly Harry, who is Diné and a Native community organizer in northern Nevada, said the Trump-backed bill should not have advanced after voters made their position clear during the midterms.
“We thought the American voice on how we should proceed now was clear. It just seems like what we’re seeing is our Democrat senators being disingenuous with how they view Nevadans and people within Indian country,” Harry said.
Under the bill, early consultation with Tribal Nations would be optional during the early stages of the permitting process, which would limit their ability to identify cultural resources and inform decision-makers of potential conflicts.
“There are already not enough opportunities or notice for tribes to give input or to educate themselves about what projects are up and coming and the infrastructure being put in place. It’s already weak,” said Lisa Grayshield, a member of the Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California and an associate professor at New Mexico State University.
The bill would also limit what projects need to go through the Tribal consultation process and what sites would qualify as culturally important.
Native organizers say the legislation would not only weaken government-to-government consultation and alter long-standing historic preservation reviews, it would allow the Secretary of the Interior to suspend funding and override the functions of Tribal Historic Preservation Officers if they miss new stricter response deadlines.
“These roles are very important to our tribe because they protect our stories, our songs, our cultural lands and burial sites, and our history for the next generation,” said Josh Dini, a member of the Walker River Paiute Tribe and founder of Prayer Horse Inc., a nonprofit created to protect Indigenous culture, land, and sovereignty. “If this bill goes through, I don’t know what’s going to happen. We won’t be able to stand up to protect our land, protect the people, and protect our sovereignty.”
Harry and several other Native organizers will hold a protest at the Bruce R. Thompson Courthouse and Federal Building in Reno on Friday to pressure Nevada’s senators to vote against legislation they say will weaken government-to-government consultation and alter long-standing historic preservation reviews.
“We could be exposed to larger amounts of pollutants at a faster rate because now everything is open for the gas, oil, and mining industries to just come in and do whatever they want. They still want everything that we have. They are still trying to steal everything that we have, and that is what this protest is about,” Harry said, adding that it’s dedicated to the late Mary and Carrie Dann, both Western Shoshone activists in Nevada.
Other Nevada officials have spoken out against the bill. Gov. elect and current state attorney general Arron Ford signed onto a letter warning that the permitting overhaul would weaken environmental protections and undermine state and Tribal Nation authority.
Changes to the Clean Water Act under the bill would “unreasonably curtail traditional state authority and lead to dirtier, more polluted waters in our states,” wrote more than a dozen attorneys general in the letter.
