我这样说，听起来似乎是个轻而易举的决定：两党美国可负担性与就业法案2026版是一代人以来对联邦审批流程最大规模的重新构想。它将使各类新能源基础设施的建设更加容易：风电场和太阳能农场、州际输电线路，当然还有天然气管道。它还将使许多其他项目的建设更加容易：铁路和公共交通基础设施、经济适用房以及宽带互联网。
When I say it this way, it sounds like such an easy call: The Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act of 2026 is the largest reimagining of the federal permitting process in a generation. It would make it far easier to build new energy infrastructure of all kinds: wind and solar farms and interstate transmission lines and, yes, natural gas pipelines. It would make it easier to build much else, too: rail and transit infrastructure and affordable housing and broadband internet.
这项法案代表着民主党和共和党决定，关于建设什么的争论应当在选举和市场中进行，而非在行政机构和法院的深处进行。它应当由公众想要什么来驱动，而不是由他们能够阻止什么来驱动，前者是公开的，后者往往是私下的。我并不指望每种情况下都能得到我喜欢的结果。但让系统保持不变，就是灾难的保证。现状已经让我们完全无法建设我们需要的能源系统。
The bill represents Democrats and Republicans deciding that the fight over what gets built should play out in elections and markets rather than in the bowels of administrative agencies and courts. It should be driven by what people want, in public, rather than what they can block, often in private. I do not expect, in every case, that that would lead to outcomes I like. But leaving the system unchanged is a guarantee of calamity. The status quo has left us completely unable to build the energy system we need.
不过，我不希望这篇专栏读起来比我实际的感觉更加自信。这项法案超过400页，其中大部分内容用于对其他法律的技术性修改。在报道这篇文章期间，国会山工作人员对我关于同一条款的说法截然相反，这让我感到不安。这种规模的立法很少会完全按照其设计者的预期发展。该法案将修订的法律，例如《国家环境政策法》和《国家历史保护法》，其运作方式与1960年代和70年代签署成为法律时所预期的已大不相同。
Still, I don’t want this column to read as more confident about this bill than I really am. It is more than 400 pages, with much of it dedicated to technical changes to other laws. I’ve been unnerved, while reporting this story, by Capitol Hill staff members telling me precisely opposite things about the same provisions. Legislation at this scale rarely plays out exactly as its architects expect. The laws that the act would revise, like the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Historic Preservation Act, work quite differently today than what was expected when they were signed into law in the 1960s and ’70s.
但从本质上看，两党美国可负担性和就业法案反复做同一件事：它将通过削减近几十年来层出不穷的延误、诉讼和否决机会，使能源基础设施建设更快、更简单。这是一项将清除建设程序和法律障碍的法案。它不会决定建设什么。该法案是绿色新政的一部分还是天然气复兴的一部分，将取决于民主党接下来做什么。
But at its core, the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act would do the same thing over and over again: It would make it faster and simpler to build energy infrastructure by rolling back the opportunities for delays, lawsuits and vetoes that have proliferated in recent decades. This is a bill that would remove procedural and legal obstacles to building. It would not decide what gets built. Whether the act is part of a Green New Deal or a natural gas resurgence would depend on what Democrats do next.
未来最重要的气候政策，是民主党赢得选举，从而拥有未来制定气候政策的权力。在堪萨斯州、密西西比州、南卡罗来纳州、得克萨斯州和阿拉斯加州赢得参议院席位或看起来有望赢得席位的民主党人，主张全方位能源策略。各地的民主党人都主张把可负担性放在首位。
The single most important climate policy going forward is for Democrats to win elections so that they have the power to set climate policy in the future. The Democrats who won Senate seats, or look likely to win them, in Kansas, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Alaska ran on an all-of-the-above energy strategy. Democrats everywhere ran on putting affordability first.
该法案是对他们是否认真的一次早期考验。一个只说选民想听的话，却无意做选民要求他们做的事的民主党，不会长期执政。
The bill is an early test of whether they meant it. A Democratic Party that was saying what voters wanted to hear, but has no intention of doing what voters asked them to do, will not hold power for long.