Making Tech Headlines · Page 6
Congress Finds Urgency in a Bill About Making Things Less Slow
· New York time
A bipartisan permitting bill is advancing in Congress with the potential to speed up energy projects and lower utility bills, according to The Verge. It could also accelerate polluting projects and limit oversight of new data centers, giving the proposal consequences beyond the clean energy developments its supporters hope to encourage. The bill's timing gives it an additional political twist. It is moving during a lame-duck session, when lawmakers still hold office after an election but before the next Congress takes over. A chamber often criticized for moving slowly is considering a measure intended to make other decisions move faster. The possible benefits and costs depend on how the legislation works in practice. Faster approvals could help new energy supplies come online sooner, but quicker review can also mean less scrutiny of projects and their effects. Data centers add another dimension because their growing electricity demands put pressure on the power system. For households, lower bills are a possibility rather than a guaranteed result. For communities, the question is which projects get built and how closely they are examined. Congress has found a fitting subject for a late-session burst of activity: a bill promising that the next big process will not take quite so long.
Read this story in the full newspaper →Satire. Not factual reporting. Read the original reporting from the linked publishers.