Deal clears the way for faster fossil fuel development while eroding decades of environmental and community safeguards
WASHINGTON — Yesterday, Wednesday, September 30, Senate negotiators released the text of the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act of 2026, a sweeping permitting package that would significantly change the nation’s environmental review and permitting processes. The legislation would accelerate approvals for a broad range of energy and infrastructure projects—including some renewable and fossil fuel development, transmission, mining, and data centers—while amending bedrock environmental laws including the National Environmental Policy Act, Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act, and National Historic Preservation Act.
While some argue the package will accelerate energy development and transmission infrastructure, frontline groups and GreenLatinos raise serious concerns that the legislation trades away longstanding environmental safeguards and limits communities’ ability to participate in and challenge decisions affecting our health and environment. Any provisions intended to speed clean energy development would simultaneously make it easier to permit and build new fossil fuel infrastructure, locking frontline communities into additional pollution for decades.
In response to the release of the text of this new bill, GreenLatinos Program Directors release the following statements:
“GreenLatinos has long been clear that we can build the clean energy and infrastructure our communities need faster without sacrificing the voices, health, and rights of the communities where these projects are built. Unfortunately, this deal appears to ask frontline communities to give up critical environmental protections and avenues for public participation in exchange for promises of faster development.
Latino communities already bear disproportionate pollution from highways, oil and gas operations, warehouses, ports, and other industrial facilities. Weakening environmental review and public participation will only make it easier to pile new harms onto communities already carrying far too much.
Frontline communities should not have to sacrifice their health, their voices, or their rights in the name of faster permitting. Congress should be strengthening the protections communities rely on — not bargaining them away.” - Irene Burga, Climate Justice and Clean Air Director at GreenLatinos
“Permitting reform should not come at the expense of our bedrock environmental laws and meaningful community participation. For Latine and other frontline communities, the processes of environmental review and public participation are essential for fighting against further environmental injustice that these communities already bear. The dubious promise of reinvestment and modernizing this nation’s infrastructure, while simultaneously removing the opportunity for communities to voice their concerns, raises questions about who would be benefiting from this reform. Congress continues to demonstrate that it no longer serves the communities it represents, but rather corporate polluter interest.” - Val Schull, Water and Ocean Program Director at GreenLatinos
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About GreenLatinos
NOTE: GreenLatinos is ONE WORD. GreenLatinos convenes an active comunidad of environmental, conservation, and climate justice leaders rooted in the power and wisdom of our culture, united to uplift our priorities, and driven to secure our political, economic, cultural, and environmental liberation.
