The whiplash of proposed changes to American permitting is called BAAJA. In Hindi and Urdu, “baaja” means a musical instrument, and “baaja baja dena” means giving someone a hard time.
Will it be good or bad for reform? I don’t know. The bill is 417 pages long, covers several major environmental and infrastructure laws, and changes both the process for reviewing projects and the rules for challenging decisions in court. Its effects will depend on how those provisions work together and how agencies put them into practice. For now, I’m looking at the bill as introduced on September 30, 2026. govinfo.gov
The need for faster permitting is real. Data centers need power. Geothermal projects need a workable path from exploration to production. Transmission lines need to connect energy to the places that use it. Traditional industries need to modernize and build. Developers need decisions they can plan around, and the public needs to know what is proposed, what the effects could be, and how to weigh in.
BAAJA addresses several parts of that problem. It would set deadlines for agencies to determine whether applications are complete and what level of environmental review is needed. After an environmental impact statement is published, it would give agencies 45 days to issue a decision and generally require participating agencies to complete outstanding authorizations within 90 or 120 days. It would also create a standard public-comment period of 45 to 60 days, with a possible extension to 75 days if the project sponsor agrees. Bipartisan Policy Center
There are useful ideas here. A project should not spend months waiting just to learn whether an application is complete. Agencies should know which approvals a project needs, coordinate with one another, and make their progress visible. BAAJA would require sponsors to submit a list of known federal, state, Tribal, and local authorizations, along with a record of stakeholder engagement. It also proposes reforms to transmission planning and permitting, and requires new data centers above a certain size to pay for the grid costs they cause rather than shifting those costs to other customers. Read the bill
Those measures address problems that shorter deadlines alone cannot fix. A deadline is useful when the people responsible have the records, information, staff, and authority to meet it. A common project record and better coordination can help agencies spot conflicts earlier. The bill’s geothermal provisions, for example, include an ombudsman and a permitting task force intended to help resolve disputes and move reviews along.
But BAAJA also changes who can challenge a decision and what a court can do if an environmental review is flawed.
Under Section 1110, a challenge to an authorization based on an allegedly inadequate NEPA review generally must be filed within 150 days after the authorization is made public. If there was a public-comment period, a challenger must have submitted a substantive comment that put the agency on notice of the specific issue later raised in court. The challenger must also allege direct harm. If a court finds that the review violated NEPA, the general remedy would be to send the authorization back to the agency to correct the problem, without canceling the authorization or stopping the project. The project could continue during that correction. Courts could still issue a preliminary injunction in limited circumstances involving a likely violation of another federal law and irreparable harm.
That could provide developers with more certainty. Under the current system, a permit can remain vulnerable to challenge for years, making it harder to predict the cost and timing of a project. BAAJA’s supporters argue that reducing that uncertainty could lower financing costs and help projects reach the grid sooner.
The other side of that certainty is that a successful challenge to a flawed NEPA review may no longer stop the project while the agency fixes the review. That is a consequential change. If the project can continue, the quality of the initial analysis matters more. A corrected document may improve the public record, but it cannot always undo construction or restore an alternative that was available before the project began.
This is the part I keep coming back to: does stronger review quality assurance slow projects down, or does it prevent the disputes and delays that come from getting the review wrong? I don’t know. The answer probably depends on what “stronger review” means in practice. If it means repeating work, adding paperwork, and reviewing issues that cannot affect the decision, it can become another source of delay. If it means reliable records, capable staff, early coordination, and public input while project choices can still change, it could make decisions more durable.
Section 1401 raises a related question about project certainty. It would generally restrict federal agencies from revoking or changing certain permits and authorizations already in effect, with exceptions that include a court order, a material breach or violation by the permit holder, fraud, or a need to prevent specific and urgent harm based on new information. If a court found that the agency had not met its burden to justify interfering with a covered project, the sponsor could recover attorney fees and litigation costs, delay costs, and an additional amount of 25 to 50 percent of eligible project costs already incurred. That gives the bill’s project-certainty provisions real financial force.
There is a sensible concern behind protecting permits from arbitrary reversals. A developer that has followed the rules should not have a project upended by unexplained political interference. The bill requires agencies to explain their actions and provide supporting evidence. But the exceptions and remedies matter: how well do they protect a project from arbitrary interference while preserving the government’s ability to respond to genuine problems?
Faster and fairer permitting depends on more than shorter deadlines. Agencies need usable records, reliable ways to share information, and the capacity to identify conflicts and protection issues early. Communities need a real chance to participate while changes are still possible, not just a narrow window in which to preserve a future legal claim. That takes more than publishing a notice. It takes making project information accessible, showing people what decisions are actually open, and giving agencies a way to use what they hear.
And, frankly, some of the technology needed here should be built alongside the people doing the work. Forward-deployed engineers working with agencies and project proponents could help turn recurring bottlenecks into practical tools: shared records, visible project milestones, and a clearer account of what remains unresolved. Technology cannot decide what tradeoffs are acceptable. It can help make the evidence and process legible enough for people to make those decisions.
That is what I hope reform can do: help good projects move sooner, make bad surprises less likely, and give both developers and communities a process they can understand. I’m hoping for the best reform here. Pessimism is not quite my tempo. “Par baaja toh bajega.” (“But the show must go on.”)
