The Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act Must Keep America's Word

Every project in America runs on the same hidden ingredient, which is whether people believe the government will keep its word once it has given it.

In Clearfield County, Pennsylvania, a solar project lost its $90 million federal award last October, not because the project failed any test, but because the company holding the award was listed in the wrong state, and the award died of an address. Whatever your politics, it is worth sitting with that for a moment, because it says something about the country we are becoming, one where a federal commitment lasts only until the next election changes who holds power.

I support permitting reform, and the Senate is right to take it up, because environmental reviews that drag on for years serve nobody, not the developer waiting on a decision, not the workers waiting on a job, and not the neighbors who deserve both a say in the process and an answer at the end of it. The bipartisan bill now before the Senate would put real deadlines on those reviews, and it would do something even more important, which is bar the government from tearing up a permit already in effect just because power changed hands in Washington.

That provision is the core of the bill, and its authors, Republicans and Democrats together, clearly understand why it belongs there. Capital can price the risks a project carries, from construction and weather to the markets it will sell into, but it cannot rely on a signature in Washington that means nothing four years later. A permit is a promise, and a grant is a commitment to see that promise become reality, but when political ideology becomes the reason a project gets allowed and funded, the economic development of the communities we say we care about will no longer thrive.

Last year the Energy Department canceled hundreds of energy awards worth more than $7 billion in a sweep sorted by the politics of the states involved, and federal courts are now sorting out the economic damage, with at least one judge already ruling some of the cancellations unconstitutional. Four senators are asking the administration to restore those awards and to say so in writing before the Senate votes on the permitting bill next month, and that is not an unreasonable ask, because it is the same principle the bill is built on, applied to promises that were already made.

Pennsylvania was quietly affected by these changes at the Energy Department. Both of our hydrogen hubs survived the cancellations on paper and have stalled anyway, waiting on a federal partner whose commitments no longer feel certain.

Speed is only half of what Washington is selling here, because the other half, the half that decides whether anything actually gets built, is durability. A two-year review that ends in a permit the next administration can unwind is worth less to everyone involved than a three-year review that ends in a promise the government actually keeps.

So pass the bill, restore what was taken, and let the two ideas travel together from here: build fast, and build on your word. A nation that wants more built has to be a nation whose signature means something, in this administration and in every one that follows it.