By Pat Davis, New Mexico Political Report — For most government workers and union members, Columbus Day or Indigenous Peoples’ Day is the Monday cap to a three-day weekend. But that is not true for the U.S. Senate staff and local building trades members working to keep up with Sen. Martin Heinrich’s push to pass a major federal energy and jobs bill before a new Congress starts in January and resets relationships and vote counts he cultivated for years.
This story was originally published at New Mexico Political Report, a nonprofit news service covering politics and policy in the Land of Enchantment. Learn more and support our work at nmreports.org
Last month, Heinrich stood alongside Senators Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, Shelly Moore Capito, Republican of West Virginia and Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, to introduce their Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act of 2026. If passed, the bill would set strict timelines for litigation and objections currently stalling new federal infrastructure and energy projects for decades, and removing some reviews altogether for upgrades to existing facilities. “The right to litigate still exists,” he explained during a town hall with local building trades members on Monday in Albuquerque’s International District. “It just has a timeline.”
Recognition that the federal permitting process is broken is bipartisan, but finding agreement on how to fix it has proven elusive and today’s political climate and unpredictable White House haven’t made finding bi-partisan agreement any easier. However, this bill may have a chance, Heinrich says. He pointed to a long list of endorsers from conservative funders in the oil industry to clean energy and labor groups — which brought him to the United Association Local 412 union hall in Albuquerque on Monday.
Local labor union business managers, the men whose job it is to find the next job for their members, nodded in recognition as Heinrich recalled the nearly 18-year process to build the SunZia transmission line across New Mexico and Arizona. “It took 16 years of permitting and just two years of construction” to build the transmission line sending New Mexico’s wind energy resources to power-hungry Arizona, Heinrich said. “It represented a $20 billion investment. We need to get the details right, but we could have done that in five years, not 16.” To pipefitters, electricians and laborers in the room, those final permits unlock months or years of work on their next job.
Darrell Deaguero, business manager for the LiUNA Local 16 laborers’ union, said it can be hard to attract new laborers into apprenticeship programs without the guarantee of steady work on the other side. “We have this issue where we try to do the best we can to get stuff on the calendar in anticipation of these projects, then it doesn’t happen. They go through the classes, they go through the apprenticeship – our apprenticeship is two years.” Courtney Eichhorst, business manager at UA 412, echoed those challenges. ”We’ve had several projects in the state right now where we talk to them and they say we need 100 welders and 100 plumbers next month, but then the permits are slow.” Workers “have to go work somewhere else, maybe to work in the Permian basin in Texas or right now they are going to Virginia. This would help us plan to man and train for these projects.”
Jeffrey Steel, executive director of the New Mexico Building and Construction Trades Council said the bill could unlock up to 21,000 jobs in New Mexico over the next decade. But not all of those have to be at a huge scale, Heinrich made clear. Modern power flow equipment could double the capacity of the transmission line for about 10% of the cost, the former engineer turned senator said as he nerded out over transmission capacity alongside members of the local IBEW electricians’ union. Today, that upgrade requires an entire new environmental review even if the infrastructure itself never changes. The BAAJA would exempt those upgrades altogether allowing the projects and jobs they create to move forward faster.
The fact that this bill has a real shot of passing is almost as unlikely as it is to have Heinrich and Lee doing it together. Lee is the senate’s leading proponent for selling off America’s public lands. Heinrich measures his success in office by the number of acres of wilderness he can protect. Still, they both want this bill passed, and fast, before elections bring in new senators and congresspersons and new distractions for the White House. To get there, Heinrich and his team are engaged in a full court press with their stakeholders in clean energy and labor. Lee has been making the case in conservative media where he earned the support of Americans for Prosperity, the Koch-founded libertarian political movement. Capito and Whitehouse are making their own rounds among colleagues and friendly media outlets.
Pressed about the prospect of such a big bill passing with so little time left, the usually pragmatic senator was notably encouraged about working with another unusual collaborator. “We’re closer than we’ve ever been. And, I’ve been shocked at how constructive our engagement with the White House has been,” he told me. “If the White House wants this, then we can get this through the House.” For now, they are “very focused on it,” Heinrich teased before rushing off to the next event – the second of four planned for the holiday – where once again he’ll make his pitch.