Position on S. 5653, Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act

Dear Senator,

Since 1919, the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) has been the leading voice of the American people in protecting and enhancing our National Park System. On behalf of our 1.9 million members and supporters nationwide, we urge you to oppose S. 5653, the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act of 2026 (BAAJA). While we share the sponsors’ goal of building clean energy and transmission faster, and we recognize the years of bipartisan work behind this bill and the improvements in the sponsors’ substitute amendment, the amendment does not fix the provisions that would seriously jeopardize protections for our cherished national parks. We urge you to vote no on this bill in its current form and on any procedural motions to advance it. We hope Congress can take a more balanced approach next year.

Climate change is the greatest long-term threat national parks face, from shrinking glaciers to rising seas to the loss of ancient giant sequoias. NPCA has long supported efforts to cut pollution causing record-setting wildfires, droughts and floods that are affecting every park across the country. We acknowledge that this bill could unlock clean energy projects and build out a stronger power grid. Parks benefit from such advancements. We understand how important developing more renewable energy resources and the transmission network is to bring this clean energy to communities across the country. NPCA supports the bill’s transmission title, its requirement that data centers pay their share of the new grid costs, its guidance steering offshore wind away from national park waters and its funding authorization for the Historic Preservation Fund. Clean energy and park protection can advance together, and the changes we recommend below would ensure these gains do not come at the expense of national parks.

We are also focused on helping all our special places prepare for the changes they cannot avoid. National parks do not exist in isolation. Federal projects – whether a pipeline, transmission line, mine or oil and gas drill field – impact park lands Congress and past presidents have protected for the American people. It is the impact the bill could have on the ability of parks to prepare that causes us the biggest concern. The bill’s changes could lock in permits for projects that impact parks without examining their whole impact on all park resources. Federal permits should seek to avoid impacting parks, which are visited by over 300 million people annually and preserve irreplaceable American resources. Federal decisions affecting these places should be informed by the people who know them best. Limiting engagement from the National Park Service (NPS), the public, Tribes and interested organizations may speed up the process, but it silences the people and communities most affected, ignores the knowledge they bring and will ultimately cause any progress to come at a greater cost.

National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA)

Among the many changes the bill proposes, one of our greatest concerns is Division B, Title III, which rewrites the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA). Section 106 remains the primary way the public, Tribes and state and local governments have a voice in federal projects that affect historic places. For projects reviewed under Section 106, most are cleared quickly. Of roughly 120,000 projects reviewed each year, about 98% are designed to avoid harm to historic properties. Only the most damaging come under additional scrutiny, which is appropriate to protect resources that once lost are gone forever.

Instead of reforming the existing system, Section 2301 still lets agencies end consultation at their sole discretion and limits participation including shutting out the public organizations like NPCA. It also directs agencies to largely ignore a project’s visual and audible effects on historic sites, ends review for many federally funded projects, restricts legal actions and allows the federal government to take funding away from State and Tribal Historic Preservation Offices and responsibilities away from State offices. The substitute amendment makes welcome changes, including dropping the narrower definition of places of traditional religious and cultural importance and the federal takeover of Tribal Historic Preservation Offices. But these provisions were still written without Tribal consultation.

At Minidoka National Historic Site in Idaho, where Japanese Americans were incarcerated during World War II, Section 106 consultation gave survivors’ families, local residents and the state’s preservation office a voice in a proposed wind project. The result was an approved permit in which wind turbines were moved farther from the site and were reduced in number and height to protect the historic landscape. Consultation improved the project rather than stopping it. The Department of the Interior (DOI) separately reversed the approval in 2025. NPCA welcomes a genuine effort to improve the NHPA, developed with Tribes, preservation officials and the public. This title should be removed or revised further next year.

National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)

NPCA is also concerned with similar changes to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in Division A, Title I. Section 1110 would bar courts from halting a project based on NEPA claims alone and limit the remedy for an unlawful approval to sending it back to the agency while the project moves forward. NPCA has seen firsthand what this means. After a federal appeals court found in 2019 that the Army Corps of Engineers should have prepared a full environmental impact statement for transmission towers across the James River near historic Jamestown (part of Colonial National Historical Park) and the Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail, the permit was left in place during the new review. The towers, built while the case was pending, still stand today. Under this bill, this outcome could become the norm with projects completed despite significant flaws. The bill also narrows the actions NEPA covers, allows agencies to adopt one another’s categorical exclusions and shortens the time the public has to weigh in. We welcome efforts to make environmental reviews faster and more predictable while keeping a meaningful voice for parks and the public. Section 1110 and these related provisions should be removed or substantially revised next year.

Endangered Species Act (ESA)

NPCA has serious concerns with several provisions in Division A, Title III - Endangered Species Act. Of greatest concern is Section 1304, which changes how consultation under Section 7 of the ESA is undertaken. ESA consultation evaluates the effects of agency actions on listed species and critical habitat and considers ways to minimize those effects. Currently, the federal agency involved in a project must consult with either the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) or the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). Under this bill, the state where a federal action takes place may act as the consultant under the ESA, instead of FWS or NMFS. This change could create over 50 different programs undermining the efficiency goals of this bill. This approach runs the risk of creating conflicts and overlapping decisions, especially in areas where project decisions are being made specific to migratory species such as threatened and endangered aquatic and avian species. As a result, a decision made on a project in Florida could have a significant impact on a species Rhode Island is working to recover. Additionally, as written, no exception is made for federal actions inside national parks or other federal lands. The substitute amendment adds safeguards for poorly performing state programs but does not resolve these concerns. NPCA welcomes stronger partnerships with states on species recovery, built on the expertise of federal wildlife agencies. Section 1304 should be removed or substantially revised.

Project Certainty

NPCA had several concerns with Division A, Title IV - Project Certainty. Although the title is intended to remedy the political and arbitrary stalling and revocation of permits for energy projects, certainty is equally important for communities, landscapes and sustainable and compatible development near parks. Recent limits on public input already imposed and proposed by this administration, combined with the proposed changes in this bill to laws like NEPA, ESA, and NHPA, could grant permits or federal approvals to covered projects with little or no public or scientific review. The bill’s original language could also support legal challenges to future attempts to regulate under other laws or put conditions on the operation of infrastructure covered by this legislation. The substitute amendment improves this title, including requiring a showing of bad faith before added damages are awarded, preserving courts’ authority to grant relief and adding a new savings clause. It addresses many but not all of our concerns.

Geothermal Leasing

NPCA is also concerned that geothermal provisions in Division B, Title II, Subtitle C could put the geysers of Yellowstone National Park or geothermal features at other parks at risk. Yellowstone holds more than half of the world’s active geysers, fed by underground heat and water that extend beyond the park boundary. Since 1988, the Geothermal Steam Act has required DOI to deny geothermal leases that are reasonably likely to significantly harm thermal features in national parks. Section 2229 would exempt broad categories of geothermal drilling from NEPA entirely. Section 2225 would eliminate the federal drilling permit for many wells on non-federal land, including wells that only pass through federal geothermal resources, removing additional reviews at the permit stage to further verify whether a project threatens Yellowstone or other parks. The substitute amendment broadens these exemptions rather than narrowing them. Geothermal development has degraded or destroyed geyser fields around the world, and a geyser that stops erupting cannot be restored. These provisions should not apply to activities that may affect protected thermal features in national parks.

Agency Capacity

Lastly, none of this can be carried out without remedying the fact that the federal agencies, especially those in DOI and the Department of Agriculture, have seen steep staff losses over the last decade. NPS alone has lost 25% of its staff since 2025. Without funding and direction to hire more staff and provide adequate resources, permitting reform will still be bogged down regardless of any changes to the law. NPCA welcomes the bill’s permitting improvement fund as an important first step. Sustained funding and direction to rebuild staff at NPS and other agencies that carry out these reviews would help ensure permitting reform delivers on its promise.

Thank you for considering our views.