Many MindedRhodium: permitting overhaul could trim emissions and household power bills
The Rhodium Group, an independent research firm, has modeled the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act (BAAJA), a permitting reform bill still in development. Its conclusion: compared with status quo policy, the bill would likely cut greenhouse gas emissions slightly and lower electricity bills by 2040.
The range matters. In the worst case, emissions simply remain unchanged on their current trajectory. In the best case, U.S. economy-wide emissions fall 4% by 2040, energy bills drop $78 per year, and more than 200 gigawatts of new clean energy capacity are added. The bill eases construction of long-distance transmission lines, and also of natural gas pipelines. A separate Resources for the Future analysis, limited to the power grid, found electricity emissions could fall 6% and power bills by $350 billion through 2041.
Why it moves abundance: electricity cost is a base layer for nearly everything else, and the bottleneck is often building, not technology. BAAJA targets federal obstacles to constructing infrastructure rather than being a climate bill. If it speeds transmission and new generation, household energy bills could fall. That would also help sustenance, since cheaper energy feeds into producing and moving food.
The caveats are substantial. The $78, 4% and 200 GW figures are best-case results. Rhodium's model uses economic inputs like supply and demand and cannot capture physical grid features such as line routes or bottlenecks, which makes it crude for transmission policy. Ben King of Rhodium said the results are directional, not a precise accounting. The analysis also leaves out some provisions, including the permitting certainty provisions Democrats originally sought to counter Trump's opposition to wind power. Watch for how the bill's final text and any further modeling address those gaps.
Source: Heatmap