From lead paint to DNA tests: surprising discoveries from America’s national parks

Well, on our last episode, we told you about Project Beehive, which is that plan to put hundreds of small nuclear reactors and a nuclear waste disposal site on BLM land outside of Price, Utah to power a massive data center complex.

And now the Senate may be about to make sure no future president could stop it.

After the election, the Senate plans to take up a bipartisan permitting bill that's sponsored by Mike Lee, Shelley Moore Capito, Martin Heinrich, and Sheldon Whitehouse.

The bottom line from our perspective here is that this bill would be a disaster for public lands.

There are three provisions in here that are a huge problem as it's written right now.

First up is the industry lock-in.

The bill bars agencies from changing any permit in effect on or after September 16th of this year.

unless that agency can meet a clear and convincing evidence standard, which is a far higher bar than agencies normally face.

Second, the public is locked out under this bill.

Right now, as written, if a judge finds an agency botched its environmental review, the court can pause the project, but construction keeps going while the review gets redone, and the agency can't even act on what it finds.

Oh, and anyone who wants to challenge a project just gets 150 days to sue, which may seem like a long time, but it's not.

The third issue is the price tag.

If a future administration slows down a whole category of projects like gas plants or nuclear fuel facilities, taxpayers would pay developers 50 to 100% of their construction costs if the bill passes as written.

That money comes from a treasury fund that doesn't require a vote of Congress.

Now, President Trump is scheduled to leave office in 2029.

So if this bill were to pass, it would give Interior Secretary Doug Burgum over two years to approve as many data centers, nuclear reactors, and drilling permits as he wants on public lands, effectively locking them in for good.

Now, you remember last year, Martin Heinrich, who is a great champion of public lands, said after Mike Lee tried to sell off public lands, Don't, unless you feel like losing.

And his co-author on this bill now is Senator Mike Lee.

So it is not too late to pump the brakes on this.

Senator Heinrich, fellow Democrats, could rework the problematic parts of this bill and wait to pass it until the new Congress comes in.

There is not some great political rush that says this thing has to get done during lame duck.

Right now, Senator Heinrich appears to be full speed ahead.

He says this bill will age very well over time, which I guess is true to the extent that plutonium-239 has a half-life of about 24,000 years.

That's uranium, right?

Uranium gets enriched into plutonium.