The House approved the Geothermal Energy Advancement Act on Tuesday afternoon, sending a bipartisan permitting-reform package to the Senate that would force the Interior Department to speed up approvals for projects that tap the Earth's internal heat for electricity.

The bill passed by voice vote, a sign of broad, cross-party support in a chamber that has struggled to find consensus on much of anything in recent months. The legislation combines provisions from several Republican- and Democratic-authored bills into a single package aimed at one target: the federal permitting bottleneck that critics say has kept geothermal energy from competing in American power markets.

At a time when Congress can barely agree on the color of the sky, the fact that lawmakers from Colorado, Utah, and Nevada collaborated on an energy bill, and got it through the House without a recorded roll-call fight, is worth noticing. Whether the Senate acts before the August recess is another question entirely.

What the Geothermal Energy Advancement Act would do

The bill, first introduced by Rep. Jeff Hurd, a Colorado Republican, centers on three concrete requirements, each built around a 60-day clock.

First, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum would have to appoint a geothermal ombudsman within 60 days. That ombudsman would serve as a liaison among officials and offices within the Bureau of Land Management to streamline permitting for geothermal projects.

Second, Burgum would be required to stand up a geothermal permitting task force, also within 60 days, to support the ombudsman's work.

Third, the Interior Department would face a 60-day deadline to process applications on geothermal-related projects, including leasing, drilling permits, and other authorizations. That provision came from a separate bill introduced by Rep. Celeste Maloy, a Utah Republican.

The legislation also incorporates a provision from Rep. Susie Lee, a Nevada Democrat, expanding a categorical exclusion from National Environmental Policy Act requirements for certain geothermal projects. NEPA, a 55-year-old law, requires federal agencies to consider environmental effects when issuing permits for new projects. Its critics, a growing number on both sides of the aisle, argue that NEPA reviews pile costly delays onto energy development without proportionate environmental benefit.

Why geothermal matters, and why it has lagged

Geothermal energy draws power from the Earth's internal heat, a resource that has been used for hundreds of years in places like Iceland and New Zealand, where it heats natural hot springs, rivers, and pools. Advances in hydraulic fracturing now allow developers to target that heat several miles deep into the ground, opening the door to commercial-scale electricity generation far beyond traditional volcanic zones.

The Energy Department estimates geothermal has a capacity factor of 65%, the amount of electricity a generator can produce when running at full output. That figure is second only to nuclear power among energy sources, making geothermal one of the most reliable forms of generation available. Unlike wind and solar, it does not depend on weather or time of day.

Yet geothermal has remained a marginal player in the U.S. energy mix. The reason, supporters of the bill argue, is not geology or technology. It is paperwork. Extensive federal permitting requirements impose costly delays that prevent geothermal from becoming a commercially viable alternative in electricity markets. The Geothermal Energy Advancement Act is designed to attack that problem head-on, with hard deadlines and a dedicated federal point person.

Permitting reform: a rare bipartisan priority

Permitting reform has been a priority for both parties in this Congress. The House passed separate legislation last December aimed at reforming NEPA and modernizing the permitting process more broadly. That broader effort has stalled in the Senate, which has not released text of its own version of the reforms.

In recent weeks, both Republicans and Democrats in the Senate have indicated that progress is being made on a deal. But time is running short. Congress faces an August recess, and the legislative calendar ahead of the midterm elections leaves little room for complex negotiations. The dynamics of internal Republican disagreements over major legislation have already slowed other parts of the GOP agenda this session.

The geothermal bill's bipartisan construction may give it a better chance of surviving the Senate than some of the more partisan energy proposals floating around Capitol Hill. Voice votes in the House suggest that leadership on both sides saw no political cost in letting the measure pass without forcing members to go on the record, a luxury that disappears quickly when legislation becomes a proxy fight.

Still, the Senate's track record on acting swiftly is not encouraging. Narrow margins and procedural gamesmanship have turned even popular measures into hostages of larger legislative battles. Recent close Senate votes on unrelated matters have shown how quickly bipartisan goodwill evaporates when the upper chamber gets involved.

A model for getting energy policy right

What makes the Geothermal Energy Advancement Act worth watching is not just the policy. It is the method. The bill does not throw subsidies at a favored industry. It does not create a new federal spending program. It does not pick winners and losers among energy sources. It simply tells the federal government to get out of the way faster.

Hurd's original bill was amended to include Maloy's processing-deadline provision and Lee's NEPA categorical-exclusion expansion, a straightforward legislative process that produced a stronger product. That kind of collaboration has been in short supply in a House where leadership tensions and internal divisions have dominated headlines.

The 60-day deadlines are the bill's sharpest teeth. Federal permitting has become a bipartisan frustration precisely because agencies face no meaningful consequences for sitting on applications. Requiring the Interior Department to process geothermal applications within 60 days, and appointing a named ombudsman to ride herd on the Bureau of Land Management, introduces accountability where none currently exists.

The NEPA categorical exclusion for certain geothermal projects is equally significant. Environmental review serves a legitimate purpose, but when a 55-year-old law designed for highway projects and dam construction is used to slow-walk geothermal wells that produce zero emissions, the regulatory framework has outlived its rationale. Expanding the categorical exclusion acknowledges that not every project needs the same level of scrutiny.

Geothermal energy checks every box that serious energy policy should care about: high reliability, low emissions, domestic sourcing, and minimal land-use disruption compared to wind and solar farms. The fact that it has been held back primarily by bureaucratic inertia, not by market forces or technical limitations, is an indictment of how Washington handles permitting across the board.

The House vote also arrives at a moment when bipartisan roll-call outcomes have drawn scrutiny from all sides. In this case, the cross-party cooperation produced a result that conservatives should welcome: fewer regulations, faster approvals, and more domestic energy.

The Senate clock is ticking

The bill now heads to the Senate, where its fate depends on whether the upper chamber can resist the temptation to fold it into a larger permitting-reform package that may never materialize. Standalone energy bills with bipartisan House support have a decent track record of clearing the Senate, when leadership actually brings them to the floor.

With the August recess looming and midterm politics already shaping the calendar, the window is narrow. Senators from western states with significant geothermal potential, Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Oregon, California, have obvious incentives to push for quick action. Whether that translates into floor time remains to be seen.

The broader permitting-reform debate, meanwhile, continues to generate procedural maneuvering on both sides of the aisle. The Senate has yet to release text of its own permitting overhaul, and recent weeks have produced more talk of progress than actual legislative text.

If the Geothermal Energy Advancement Act dies in a Senate holding pattern, it will not be because the policy was controversial. It will be because Washington's default setting is delay, the very disease the bill was written to cure.