Here we go again. Remember the dirty deal, when the Inflation Reduction Act was held hostage by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) unless Congress agreed to approve the Mountain Valley Pipeline against the wishes of landowners and tribal members along the route in West Virginia and Virginia? Now we have the data center dirty deal. Everyone recognizes the need to speed up permitting and construction of cheap and clean energy, so that families aren’t stuck with rising electricity bills for the rest of their lives.

But the fossil fuel industry, which is already raking in obscene windfall profits from the Iran war, wants its pound of flesh. Make that tons of flesh. Because along with transmission lines, the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act of 2026 is industry’s chance to shove hyper-scale data centers down the throats of communities that are suspicious of them or outright don’t want them. Although touted as a bill to streamline long-distance transmission lines, it would actually prevent future administrations from cleaning up the grid.

Here’s how our friends at Oil Change International put it: “This bill will make it virtually impossible for communities and individuals to challenge infrastructure projects that threaten their air and water. It comes as communities across the U.S. face an unprecedented buildout of gas power plants currently being planned to fuel the AI data center boom. If the current slate of data centers and associated gas power plants move ahead, the power sector’s gas consumption could rise by 50 percent, the equivalent of the gas consumption of Central and South America combined. This would be disastrous for our climate and the communities whose air and water would be poisoned.”

And the Denver-based conservation advocacy group Center For Western Priorities’ analysis states: “The bill would give President Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum two years to approve data centers on public lands. Then, in the name of certainty it would make those approvals nearly impossible for a future president to undo even if the permits were granted illegally. It also makes taxpayers pay developers if a future administration slows down a whole category of projects.”

The Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act would lock in decisions made now, even if better alternatives become available. It naively relies on the good faith implementation by the White House and federal agencies, which have already demonstrated a disregard for the law, an irrational aversion to wind and solar, and an unhealthy obsession with fossil fuel dominance.

It would allow the federal government to override objections by communities and states when they have concerns about negative impacts about projects. Even the most optimistic model forecasts an increase in harmful greenhouse gas emissions with the passage of Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act. Proponents rationalize the bill by saying that emissions will rise even more without it. This is playing to “lose by less.”We can do much better by waiting until clean energy proponents are more powerful in Congress and in the executive branch.

Co-sponsor Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) is understandably flummoxed, perhaps infuriated, by the federal government’s rescinding of off-shore wind permits, and is trying to ensure that can’t happen again. But the timing of this bill is bizarre. In just two months, wind energy supporters will be in a much more powerful position in both chambers, with the opportunity to negotiate a better bill. Why are they planning to ram it through during the lame duck Congress, when they are at their weakest?

In future campaigns for office, today’s senators and Congress members from both parties are going to have to explain why they voted to fast track hyper-scale data centers. They can avoid all that squirming by killing the bill now.

Kenny Bruno is a senior advisor to Bold Alliance, and a longtime pipeline fighter and campaigner for environmental health.