Resources for the Future projects 1.83-gigaton power-sector emissions cut

Resources for the Future, a research nonprofit, projects that a US permitting bill’s electricity provisions would lower cumulative power-sector carbon dioxide emissions by 1.83 gigatons through 2041 and reduce electricity-system costs compared with not passing it. Inside Climate News covered the study on 29 October.

The Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act, known as BAAJA, was introduced in the US Senate on 30 September 2026. It would change federal environmental reviews and energy-project approvals, including rules for transmission lines and connecting generators to the grid.

RFF projects lower emissions than the baseline, not a decline over time

Emissions rise over the study period in both scenarios because the model adds clean and fossil-fuel generation to meet growing electricity demand. The cumulative reduction adds up the difference between the two cases over time; the final-year percentage compares emissions in that year alone.

RFF projects that additional clean generation would mainly displace coal at first, then increasingly replace generation from combined-cycle plants, a type of natural-gas power plant. The model initially adds a little combined-cycle gas capacity, likely because connection constraints are removed, but puts that capacity below the no-bill baseline later in the study period.

What changes in the model

The bill would expand the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s authority to permit certain interstate transmission lines, require planning within and between regions, change how transmission costs are shared and reform generator connections. RFF represents these changes by easing construction limits, lowering transmission costs and removing modeled connection constraints and executive-branch obstacles to wind generation.

The model also increases existing lines’ capacity to represent advanced transmission technologies. It lowers the costs of building lines that connect generators to the network and connecting generation on federal lands to represent some changes to environmental laws.

RFF uses the Regional Energy Deployment System, or ReEDS, created by the National Laboratory of the Rockies. The model plans generating capacity and determines how plants supply electricity, with detailed treatment of transmission. Both scenarios use the same electricity demand, growing at a compound annual rate of 2.7 percent to represent data centers and other sources of demand.

The central case uses the laboratory’s reference oil and natural-gas prices and technology costs from its 2024 Annual Technology Baseline Moderate scenario. Those technology costs exclude near-term increases from tariffs or supply-chain constraints. The modeling also incorporates the repeal of Inflation Reduction Act wind and solar tax credits under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and the rescission of US Environmental Protection Agency greenhouse-gas rules for power plants.

RFF also tests different fuel prices and clean-technology costs. Higher natural-gas prices and cheaper clean technology produce more renewable development; cheaper gas combined with costlier clean technology produces less. Across the tested scenarios, RFF finds the same direction of change relative to each baseline: more transmission and clean generation, with lower system costs and power-sector emissions.

System savings are not household bill forecasts

RFF’s electricity-system cost measure combines operating costs with annualized payments for generating and transmission capacity, then divides the total by electricity demand. It excludes local distribution-network costs. Retail rates also depend on how utilities and electricity markets are regulated, so the projected savings do not guarantee matching reductions in household bills.

In the model, savings come from spending less on fuel and on new generation and storage. Higher spending to build and operate transmission partly offsets those savings. The expanded grid allows electricity demand to be met with less total generating capacity.

What the study leaves outside its assessment

RFF does not directly model changes to the scope and procedures of environmental reviews, project applications, public input or judicial review. Those limits concern disputed changes to the Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act, National Environmental Policy Act and National Historic Preservation Act, even though the model represents some lower connection costs associated with environmental-law changes.

The study excludes effects on pipelines, mining and other activities outside electricity generation and transmission. It also excludes indirect effects on electricity from natural-gas pipeline development or changes in natural-gas exports. Its projected power-sector reductions therefore do not establish the whole bill’s net climate effect.

For provisions intended to make permits more durable, RFF models their stated aim: preserving federal approvals and preventing unequal executive-branch treatment of energy technologies. RFF says possible consequences beyond that intent remain under discussion and are not captured by its model.

Study co-author Kevin Rennert, an RFF research fellow, said anyone deciding where to stand on the bill should consider a full set of analyses when assessing its overall effects.

The US Senate is scheduled to hold an initial procedural vote on 9 November on whether to begin debating the bill, not on its passage.