Trump fight goes sideways as last-minute change triggers late-night scramble: report

Democratic senators were sent scrambling Tuesday night after discovering the text of a draft bill designed to speed up federal permitting had been “changed substantially” without notice, a senior Democratic aide told Punchbowl News’ Joshua Siegel.

In the works for months, the legislation is designed to streamline permitting for energy and infrastructure projects, with negotiations starting after the Trump administration halted the construction of five offshore wind farms last December. Federal courts have overturned all five of the Trump administration’s stop-work orders, but on Wednesday, the projects were again put on hold.

“The issue is whether the administration could take additional action to stop a project even after that action has been rejected by a court,” the unnamed aide told Siegel, adding that the last-minute change to the draft bill’s language “could also impact oil and gas projects.”

A senior Republican aide disputed Senate Democrats’ assertion that the draft bill’s text had been changed discreetly, telling Siegel that the text had remained unchanged since last Wednesday, and that Senate Democrats only raised the issue around 9 p.m. Tuesday. Furthermore, the aide said that Senate Republicans had decided against reopening language changes to the bill “at this late hour,” setting up what Siegel described as a “permitting standoff.”

The fight over the federal permitting process for energy and infrastructure projects has caught the attention of major industry trade groups, many of which have “urged” lawmakers to pass legislation reforming the process. Such calls come as Trump, during his second term, has “hindered the expansion of clean energy technologies,” Reuters reported last week.