The Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act introduced in the Senate last month isn’t just a landmark package for efficiently moving electricity where it needs to go. It’s also a way to help scale geothermal, a valuable but vastly underused energy resource, to get more electrons on the grid in the first place.
To meet the nation’s rapidly rising electricity demand, we need more baseload and dispatchable sources — meaning those that generate power round-the-clock and those that can be ramped up and down to track fluctuating consumption. Geothermal delivers both those capabilities carbon-free, drawing from the renewable resource of Earth’s natural subsurface heat. To help scale this energy asset, the bill proposes a comprehensive suite of regulatory reform.
This legislative package, known as BAAJA, comes at a crucial time in America’s efforts to meet its long-term energy needs. Demand peaks — periods such as hot summer afternoons when electricity consumption is highest and the grid must supply more power than usual — are anticipated to grow by 103 to 197 GW by 2030. That’s a sizable increase over the record 760 GW the grid had to deliver at once in July of last year. An always-on, clean energy source (sometimes called “clean-firm”) such as geothermal can help boost the grid’s resilience to meet those moments. But, it can do so only with a regulatory environment that supports its fast deployment.
BAAJA would take a significant step in that direction by addressing many of the permitting and regulatory obstacles to commercializing next-generation geothermal that we identified in our Adoption Readiness Levels assessment.
A new permitting mandate, and the tools to deliver
A large portion of near-term geothermal resources are located on public lands and require one or more federal permits, often from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently reported that inconsistent decision-making across BLM offices and the absence of a unified permit tracking mechanism have made timelines more uncertain, left developers with limited insight into the process, and made it difficult for BLM to identify bottlenecks.
Faster, more predictable timelines and streamlining interagency and other layers of review would give geothermal developers and investors greater confidence to pursue projects in new, unproven geological settings. Geothermal development needs this investment to validate next-generation technologies across a variety of lands. This would in turn generate the project data necessary to commercialize these promising technologies.
BAAJA combines several bipartisan proposals for helping geothermal operators get federal permits to drill.
- It would set clearer expectations for processing permits by establishing 30-day deadlines for BLM to confirm applications are complete or request additional information, and to issue final decisions.
- It would increase BLM’s capacity to meet deadlines by directing the Secretary of the Interior to appoint a geothermal ombudsman in BLM to align and expedite permitting practices across the bureau’s field, district, and state offices. A similar provision was included in an omnibus geothermal bill that the House passed earlier this year. The ombudsman would act as a liaison in the bureau to develop and promulgate best practices for authorizing geothermal resources, help offices resolve disputes with applicants, and coordinate more consistent, predictable timelines. It would also lead a new geothermal permitting task force to assign experienced Department of Interior (DOI) employees to assist BLM offices with completing authorizations.
- It would direct DOI to include geothermal resources in its Surface Operating Standards and Guidelines for Oil and Gas Exploration and Development. Known as the “Gold Book,” these guidelines detail the requirements for obtaining permits and conducting environmentally responsible operations on federal lands. GAO’s report noted that the lack of geothermal-specific handbooks and inconsistent language between developers and bureau officials could contribute to more confusion and delays. The Gold Book would help align BLM offices around standard permitting and leasing procedures, as well as give operators a better understanding of the approvals process, which could further reduce administrative burden on office staff.
- It would allow DOI to charge geothermal lease-holders and applicants for the administrative and oversight costs associated with processing drilling permits and monitoring and inspecting approved activities, which the department is already cleared to do for solar, wind, and oil and gas projects.
Expanding access to public lands
Other provisions offer developers more immediate, targeted relief by shortening the federal review process altogether. Currently, a single geothermal project can trigger NEPA up to six separate times. BAAJA would exempt certain exploration and preliminary development activities — the earlier stages before major project construction — from this protracted environmental analysis, leveling the regulatory playing field with the oil and gas industry that has benefited from such exemptions since 2005.
The bill would also increase the frequency of federal geothermal lease sales from every two years to annually, bringing supply of public land in closer alignment with surging developer interest and expanding opportunities for learning by doing.
A breakthrough moment for geothermal, and for the grid
The geothermal support carved out in BAAJA is an important part of a comprehensive approach to enhancing America’s electrical grid resilience. The same forces that drive the need for more long-distance transmission also strengthen the case for geothermal: rising electricity demand, increasingly severe weather, and a changing energy mix as dispatchable coal-fired generation retires and more variable renewable resources come online.
Geothermal’s inexhaustible energy supply and continuous, flexible power output can help stabilize the grid and ensure enough power is available when consumers need it most.
Regulatory reforms alone won’t guarantee geothermal’s place on the grid. But, by streamlining federal permitting and leasing, strengthening government capacity to actually coordinate speedier approvals, and opening up access to public lands, BAAJA would help create the conditions that allow developers to quickly gain experience and drive down costs. In doing so, it could give geothermal the momentum it needs to finally gain steam.
