New Analysis: The Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act Would Create up to 105,600 Industrial Jobs

The Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act (BAAJA) would reform outdated permitting laws for transmission lines, power plants, and natural gas infrastructure, and make sure data centers pay their fair share of grid costs.

We conducted an analysis of manufacturing domestic employment requirements and input-output tables to evaluate the impact of the BAAJA on employment in the industrial sector, covering both the investment in renewable energy and transmission infrastructure the bill would accelerate and its effects on energy prices. We estimate that these reforms could add up to 105,600 industrial jobs in manufacturing, mining, and construction through 2040 compared with current law, in three ways:

1. Building additional wind plants, solar farms, battery facilities, and transmission lines would support up to 38,900 jobs in manufacturing, mining and other industrial sectors and 35,800 construction jobs through 2040.
2. Maintaining these additional facilities would support an additional 12,300 jobs in on-site operations and maintenance and manufacturing replacement equipment after the buildout.
3. Cheaper electricity and natural gas would support 9,200–18,600 lasting manufacturing jobs by reducing manufacturing costs, improving the international competitiveness of American manufacturing, and reshoring manufacturing jobs.

Building new generation facilities and transmission infrastructure will employ tens of thousands of Americans in industrial sectors.

BAAJA will remove barriers to building hundreds of gigawatts of renewable generation capacity in wind, solar and battery storage, and thousands of miles of additional transmission lines. Building these new facilities will require American labor to construct these facilities and build the turbines, photovoltaic panels, inverters, and wires that will be needed to power the next era of domestic energy production.

In a scenario where BAAJA enables 247GW of additional wind, solar and battery capacity, we estimate that the additional buildout of these facilities will employ up to an additional 37,500 workers in manufacturing and mining and 33,500 construction workers.^[1] The construction of additional transmission infrastructure will employ up to 1,400 workers in manufacturing and mining and 2,300 construction workers. Fabricated metal, electrical equipment, and aluminum products are among the manufacturing sectors that will benefit most from the buildout.

A larger energy system will require more jobs to maintain it.

Even after the buildout, we estimate that an additional 12,300 industrial workers will be required to keep those facilities running. 8,800 workers will be needed for on-site operations and maintenance, and another 3,500 manufacturing workers will be needed to build replacement parts for these additional facilities.

Cheaper energy supports manufacturing jobs, especially in energy-intensive, trade-exposed sectors.

BAAJA can reduce the cost of the electricity and natural gas used by American manufacturing by building out the grid and pipelines required to connect utilities and businesses to cheaper, more reliable sources of energy and preventing data centers from offloading their costs onto other users. We estimate that BAAJA effects on energy prices will ultimately add 9,200–18,600 manufacturing jobs by improving the competitiveness of American manufacturing, with half of these jobs coming from domestic reshoring. Energy-intensive sectors such as foundries, steel and aluminum processing, pulp and paper manufacturing, and petrochemical manufacturing are especially likely to benefit. States in the South like Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Mississippi are also likely to be large beneficiaries of the BAAJA’s natural gas reforms.

^[1] We study the low-emissions scenario in the Rhodium group’s assessment of BAAJA.