Senate permitting talks reach a turning point - Semafor

Senators want to hit the campaign trail for the fall, but first they have to figure out how much they want to get done before the election.

Negotiators are close to agreeing on a bipartisan permitting reform deal, but they also have to get through a college sports bill that will take up all of next week — absent a deal among all 100 senators to speed things up.

Senate Environment and Public Works Chair Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., told Semafor that while she’s “optimistic” about the permitting deal, “it’s got to pop out of here in the next 48 hours.”

Asked about that timeline, ranking member Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., “wouldn’t rule it out.”

And Majority Leader John Thune still could hold a roll-call vote on a data center power bill that Democrats blocked on Thursday.

Republican leaders are preparing for Democratic opponents of the college sports bill to dig in, dragging out the rest of the schedule. Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo., said he expects Sens. Cory Booker, D-N.J., and Chris Murphy, D-Conn., “are going to try to prevent it and slow us down in every possible way.”

Murphy said if GOP leaders agree to amendment votes, Democrats could probably reach an agreement to speed things up. The permitting reform bill would need to be ready to go as soon as the sports bill is done to get in the queue.

And Thune said passing the Ratepayer Protection Act — a bill from Sen. Jon Husted, R-Ohio, that Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., blocked because it only includes voluntary language on data center power consumption — hinges on how those other big bills are doing.

“It depends on next week — how quickly we move through [college sports] … and then whether or not permitting comes together. It would take some cooperation,” Thune said.

If there is a bipartisan permitting deal, it would take up even more floor time and keep senators in Washington longer. The chamber is scheduled to go on recess on Oct. 2. Even getting that deal may require commitments from across the Capitol.

Whitehouse said he’d like Thune and Speaker Mike Johnson to present a bicameral road map for a potential permitting reform deal. He said that it “doesn’t matter what we do in the Senate, now or later, if they don’t have an understanding in the House about when it gets taken up.”

“Will they come back before the election? Will they schedule something solid, a fixed date after the election? I don’t have a program from them yet. It’s not my call. But I do think it’s important that there be a Senate and House voting plan that the White House has checked off, and so that’s what we’re looking at,” Whitehouse said.