The Geothermal Energy Advancement Act — Plain English Decode
The Geothermal Energy Advancement Act (H.R. 5631) passed the House with rare bipartisan support and would overhaul federal permitting for geothermal energy, potentially unlocking a massive domestic power source that tech giants and energy companies are racing to secure — but it still needs Senate action to become law.
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What It Does
H.R. 5631 is a package of six previously separate bipartisan bills, consolidated into one vehicle and passed as a unit. At its core, the bill does four things to the federal geothermal permitting framework. First, it creates a Geothermal Ombudsman position inside the Bureau of Land Management — a dedicated liaison required to coordinate between BLM offices, resolve disputes between the agency and project applicants, and troubleshoot stalled permits across different BLM field offices. Second, it establishes a Geothermal Permitting Task Force within the Department of the Interior to identify and fix systemic permitting bottlenecks. Third, it sets a 60-day processing deadline for DOI to act on drilling permits and licenses once all required environmental reviews are complete — a clock that runs after NEPA compliance, not before. Fourth, it grants geothermal projects NEPA categorical exclusions for activities in previously studied or developed areas, bringing geothermal regulatory treatment into parity with oil and gas provisions that have existed since the Energy Policy Act of 2005. The bill also gives DOI authority to recover the costs of processing geothermal permit applications from applicants, and directs BLM to publish standardized best practices for leasing and permitting to create consistency across field offices that currently operate with significant discretion. The underlying logic is that a geothermal project on federal land can today trigger full NEPA environmental review up to six separate times — at the exploration, drilling, and construction phases — and DOE's 2019 GeoVision report found that this layered process adds years to project timelines before developers can prove out a commercially viable resource.
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The Real Story
The fight underneath this bill is about whether geothermal energy gets the same regulatory shortcuts that the oil and gas industry received 20 years ago. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 granted oil and gas operators NEPA categorical exclusions — the ability to skip full environmental review for routine activities — but geothermal was left out. Geothermal companies and their corporate buyers (including Google, which has power agreements with both Fervo and Ormat Technologies) want that disparity corrected now that the energy source has commercial relevance. The resistance isn't a loud political fight — it's quieter: some environmental groups are uneasy about expanding categorical exclusions broadly, and skeptics worry that adding new deadlines to BLM without new funding will simply create a compliance problem without actually speeding things up.
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Who Benefits
- Fervo Energy and Ormat Technologies — the two most prominent U.S. next-generation geothermal developers, who have active projects on federal land and PPAs with major tech companies. Faster permitting and clearer timelines directly reduce their project development risk and financing costs.
- Google, Microsoft, and Meta — the largest corporate buyers of around-the-clock clean power. Google already has geothermal supply deals with both Fervo (Cape Station) and Ormat. Faster permitting means more supply, sooner.
- The Corporate Energy Buyers Association (CEBA) — whose CEO Rich Powell publicly celebrated the House passage, reflecting broad support from large commercial electricity consumers seeking clean baseload alternatives.
- The U.S. Chamber of Commerce — which formally endorsed the bill, reflecting its alignment with fossil fuel–adjacent energy developers who already operate on BLM land and stand to use the same streamlined pathways.
- Nevada, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, California — the western states with the most geothermal resource on federal land. Nevada's Senator Cortez Masto has been championing these provisions for years; the Las Vegas Sun reported Nevada's geothermal capacity could grow 30-fold under the regime this bill creates.
- BLM-experienced oil and gas drillers — who already have the equipment, land access knowledge, and federal permitting expertise to pivot into geothermal. The leveling of the regulatory playing field with oil and gas specifically advantages incumbents who know how to work within that framework.
---
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Who Gets Hurt
- Environmental and tribal review advocates — groups like the Friends Committee on National Legislation and broader environmental coalitions have raised concerns that categorical exclusions skip public comment and environmental analysis that can catch harms to wildlife corridors, water tables, and culturally significant lands. Geothermal involves deep drilling, fluid injection, and surface infrastructure; categorical exclusions for "routine" activities compress the window where problems surface before ground is broken.
- BLM field office staff — the bill adds binding timelines and new coordination responsibilities to an agency that has not received a corresponding funding increase. When agencies are held to deadlines they lack resources to meet, the result is either rushed reviews or de facto violations of the statute — both of which harm the quality and durability of any permits issued.
- Communities near drilling sites in western states — geothermal development, particularly EGS (which uses hydraulic stimulation similar to fracking), can induce seismicity. The bill does not address induced seismic risk monitoring or community notification protocols, and categorical exclusions may reduce the review windows where such concerns would normally surface.
- Smaller geothermal developers — the bill's cost-recovery provision allows DOI to charge applicants for permitting-related costs. This benefits the agency but creates a new financial burden that large, well-funded companies can absorb more easily than startups.
---
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Red Flags
- No new funding. The bill imposes new mandatory deadlines, an ombudsman office, a permitting task force, and best-practice development on the Bureau of Land Management — but does not appropriate new money for any of it. Underfunded agencies routinely miss statutory deadlines already on the books (BLM's geothermal leasing backlog predates this bill), and the same pattern could render these new requirements toothless.
- Categorical exclusions without expiration or review triggers. The bill grants NEPA categorical exclusions for geothermal activities in "previously studied or developed" areas, following the oil and gas model. Critics of that model point out that "previously disturbed" designations can creep — what counts as sufficiently studied is a judgment call that future administrations can interpret broadly or narrowly, without a hard reset.
- The 60-day deadline starts a clock after environmental review, not before it. The bill mandates DOI act within 60 days on drilling permits and licenses *after completing required environmental reviews* — but does not cap how long the environmental review itself takes. This means the headline "faster permitting" applies only to the final step in a process that can still take years at the front end.
- Ombudsman has no enforcement teeth. The Geothermal Ombudsman within BLM is tasked with facilitating and liaising, but the bill does not give them authority to override field offices, impose internal deadlines, or escalate failures up the agency hierarchy.
- Senate uncertainty. The bill passed the House on June 2, 2026, by voice vote with no recorded opposition — but it is now sitting in the Senate, where it may be folded into a broader permitting reform package (which carries more political baggage) rather than advancing as a clean standalone bill. Two months have passed with no Senate floor vote.
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Hidden Riders
- Cost-recovery authority creates a new de facto application fee. The provision allowing DOI to recover permitting costs from applicants is framed as an agency efficiency tool, but it functions as a new industry-wide charge. The bill does not specify how large these fees can be or cap them — that is left to agency rulemaking. For a process that can already take years, adding unpredictable cost exposure at the start could deter early-stage exploration.
- "Best practices" directive sets up a future rulemaking fight. Directing BLM to publish standardized best practices for leasing and permitting sounds administrative, but such guidance — once published — effectively becomes the floor standard for all projects nationwide. Future administrations can use this provision to either strengthen or weaken environmental expectations for geothermal development, since the bill does not define what "best practices" must contain.
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Current Status
H.R. 5631 passed the U.S. House of Representatives by voice vote on June 2, 2026, after clearing the House Natural Resources Committee unanimously. "RFS" in the bill's designation stands for "Referred to Senate" — meaning it has crossed the chamber and is now awaiting Senate action. As of early August 2026, no Senate committee has scheduled a markup, and no floor vote has been scheduled. The bill can proceed one of three ways: the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee can hold its own markup and pass it to the Senate floor; Senate leadership can bring it directly to the floor for a unanimous consent vote (which requires no objector to object); or it can be folded into a larger energy or permitting package. The last path carries the most momentum but also the most political risk.
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Sources:
- [H.R.5631 — Congress.gov, 119th Congress](https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/5631)
- [Geothermal reform package passes House, advances to Senate — Daily Energy Insider](https://dailyenergyinsider.com/news/52548-geothermal-reform-package-passes-house-advances-to-senate/)
- [House passes bipartisan measures to speed geothermal energy projects — Canary Media](https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/geothermal/house-passes-bipartisan-measures-speed-geothermal)
- [Support for H.R. 5631, the Geothermal Energy Advancement Act — U.S. Chamber of Commerce](https://www.uschamber.com/energy/support-for-h-r-5631-the-geothermal-energy-advancement-act)
- [CEBA Applauds House Passage of Bipartisan Geothermal Permitting Package — CEBA](https://ceba.org/ceba-applauds-house-passage-of-a-bipartisan-geothermal-permitting-package/)
- [Geothermal Energy Takes Center Stage — Beatty & Wozniak Energy Law](https://www.bwenergylaw.com/blog/2026/06/geothermal-energy-takes-center-stage-federal-legislation-advances-as-western-states-form-coalition/)
- [Cortez Masto, Murkowski Propose Roadmap for Next-Generation Geothermal — Senate.gov](https://www.cortezmasto.senate.gov/news/press-releases/cortez-masto-murkowski-propose-roadmap-for-development-of-next-generation-geothermal-infrastructure/)
- [Nevada geothermal power could grow 30-fold under new Senate bill — Las Vegas Sun](https://lasvegassun.com/news/2026/apr/30/nevada-geothermal-power-could-grow-30-fold-under-n/)
- [AI Data Center Growth Pushes Enhanced Geothermal Into the Energy Spotlight — SPE Journal of Petroleum Technology](https://jpt.spe.org/ai-data-center-growth-pushes-enhanced-geothermal-into-the-energy-spotlight)
- [Geothermal Energy Needs Permitting Reform — IFP](https://ifp.org/geothermal-energy-needs-permitting-reform/)
- [Suspend the Rules and Pass the Bill H.R. 5631 — docs.house.gov](https://docs.house.gov/billsthisweek/20260601/H5631_SUS_xml.pdf)
The Geothermal Energy Advancement Act (H.R. 5631) passed the House with rare bipartisan support and would overhaul federal permitting for geothermal energy, potentially unlocking a massive domestic power source that tech giants and energy companies are racing to secure — but it still needs Senate action to become law.
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Why now
The AI boom has created an urgent, largely unsolved problem: tech giants like Google, Microsoft, and Meta need massive amounts of 24/7 carbon-free baseload electricity, and existing renewables (solar, wind) can't deliver it around the clock. Data centers' share of total U.S. electricity consumption roughly doubled between 2018 and 2023 and is projected to nearly triple by 2028 — and geothermal, which runs continuously regardless of sun or wind, is suddenly seen as a critical solution. At the same time, next-generation Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) technology — proved commercially viable by Fervo Energy through deals with Shell Energy and the Utah FORGE project's drilling advances — has made development on previously unworkable terrain possible for the first time. The catch: most U.S. geothermal resources sit on federal public land managed by the Bureau of Land Management, where the permitting process is slower than oil and gas and can trigger full environmental review up to six separate times — adding years before any power is generated.
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The real story
The fight underneath this bill is about whether geothermal energy gets the same regulatory shortcuts that the oil and gas industry received 20 years ago. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 granted oil and gas operators NEPA categorical exclusions — the ability to skip full environmental review for routine activities — but geothermal was left out. Geothermal companies and their corporate buyers (including Google, which has power agreements with both Fervo and Ormat Technologies) want that disparity corrected now that the energy source has commercial relevance. The resistance isn't a loud political fight — it's quieter: some environmental groups are uneasy about expanding categorical exclusions broadly, and skeptics worry that adding new deadlines to BLM without new funding will simply create a compliance problem without actually speeding things up.
---
##
Red flags
▸ No new funding. The bill imposes new mandatory deadlines, an ombudsman office, a permitting task force, and best-practice development on the Bureau of Land Management — but does not appropriate new money for any of it. Underfunded agencies routinely miss statutory deadlines already on the books (BLM's geothermal leasing backlog predates this bill), and the same pattern could render these new requirements toothless.
▸ Categorical exclusions without expiration or review triggers. The bill grants NEPA categorical exclusions for geothermal activities in "previously studied or developed" areas, following the oil and gas model. Critics of that model point out that "previously disturbed" designations can creep — what counts as sufficiently studied is a judgment call that future administrations can interpret broadly or narrowly, without a hard reset.
▸ The 60-day deadline starts a clock after environmental review, not before it. The bill mandates DOI act within 60 days on drilling permits and licenses *after completing required environmental reviews* — but does not cap how long the environmental review itself takes. This means the headline "faster permitting" applies only to the final step in a process that can still take years at the front end.
▸ Ombudsman has no enforcement teeth. The Geothermal Ombudsman within BLM is tasked with facilitating and liaising, but the bill does not give them authority to override field offices, impose internal deadlines, or escalate failures up the agency hierarchy.
▸ Senate uncertainty. The bill passed the House on June 2, 2026, by voice vote with no recorded opposition — but it is now sitting in the Senate, where it may be folded into a broader permitting reform package (which carries more political baggage) rather than advancing as a clean standalone bill. Two months have passed with no Senate floor vote.
▸ --
Who benefits
• Fervo Energy and Ormat Technologies — the two most prominent U.S. next-generation geothermal developers, who have active projects on federal land and PPAs with major tech companies. Faster permitting and clearer timelines directly reduce their project development risk and financing costs.
• Google, Microsoft, and Meta — the largest corporate buyers of around-the-clock clean power. Google already has geothermal supply deals with both Fervo (Cape Station) and Ormat. Faster permitting means more supply, sooner.
• The Corporate Energy Buyers Association (CEBA) — whose CEO Rich Powell publicly celebrated the House passage, reflecting broad support from large commercial electricity consumers seeking clean baseload alternatives.
• The U.S. Chamber of Commerce — which formally endorsed the bill, reflecting its alignment with fossil fuel–adjacent energy developers who already operate on BLM land and stand to use the same streamlined pathways.
• Nevada, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, California — the western states with the most geothermal resource on federal land. Nevada's Senator Cortez Masto has been championing these provisions for years; the Las Vegas Sun reported Nevada's geothermal capacity could grow 30-fold under the regime this bill creates.
• BLM-experienced oil and gas drillers — who already have the equipment, land access knowledge, and federal permitting expertise to pivot into geothermal. The leveling of the regulatory playing field with oil and gas specifically advantages incumbents who know how to work within that framework.
• --
Who gets hurt
• Environmental and tribal review advocates — groups like the Friends Committee on National Legislation and broader environmental coalitions have raised concerns that categorical exclusions skip public comment and environmental analysis that can catch harms to wildlife corridors, water tables, and culturally significant lands. Geothermal involves deep drilling, fluid injection, and surface infrastructure; categorical exclusions for "routine" activities compress the window where problems surface before ground is broken.
• BLM field office staff — the bill adds binding timelines and new coordination responsibilities to an agency that has not received a corresponding funding increase. When agencies are held to deadlines they lack resources to meet, the result is either rushed reviews or de facto violations of the statute — both of which harm the quality and durability of any permits issued.
• Communities near drilling sites in western states — geothermal development, particularly EGS (which uses hydraulic stimulation similar to fracking), can induce seismicity. The bill does not address induced seismic risk monitoring or community notification protocols, and categorical exclusions may reduce the review windows where such concerns would normally surface.
• Smaller geothermal developers — the bill's cost-recovery provision allows DOI to charge applicants for permitting-related costs. This benefits the agency but creates a new financial burden that large, well-funded companies can absorb more easily than startups.
• --
What it does
H.R. 5631 is a package of six previously separate bipartisan bills, consolidated into one vehicle and passed as a unit. At its core, the bill does four things to the federal geothermal permitting framework. First, it creates a Geothermal Ombudsman position inside the Bureau of Land Management — a dedicated liaison required to coordinate between BLM offices, resolve disputes between the agency and project applicants, and troubleshoot stalled permits across different BLM field offices. Second, it establishes a Geothermal Permitting Task Force within the Department of the Interior to identify and fix systemic permitting bottlenecks. Third, it sets a 60-day processing deadline for DOI to act on drilling permits and licenses once all required environmental reviews are complete — a clock that runs after NEPA compliance, not before. Fourth, it grants geothermal projects NEPA categorical exclusions for activities in previously studied or developed areas, bringing geothermal regulatory treatment into parity with oil and gas provisions that have existed since the Energy Policy Act of 2005. The bill also gives DOI authority to recover the costs of processing geothermal permit applications from applicants, and directs BLM to publish standardized best practices for leasing and permitting to create consistency across field offices that currently operate with significant discretion. The underlying logic is that a geothermal project on federal land can today trigger full NEPA environmental review up to six separate times — at the exploration, drilling, and construction phases — and DOE's 2019 GeoVision report found that this layered process adds years to project timelines before developers can prove out a commercially viable resource.
---
##
Hidden riders
- Cost-recovery authority creates a new de facto application fee. The provision allowing DOI to recover permitting costs from applicants is framed as an agency efficiency tool, but it functions as a new industry-wide charge. The bill does not specify how large these fees can be or cap them — that is left to agency rulemaking. For a process that can already take years, adding unpredictable cost exposure at the start could deter early-stage exploration.
- "Best practices" directive sets up a future rulemaking fight. Directing BLM to publish standardized best practices for leasing and permitting sounds administrative, but such guidance — once published — effectively becomes the floor standard for all projects nationwide. Future administrations can use this provision to either strengthen or weaken environmental expectations for geothermal development, since the bill does not define what "best practices" must contain.
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Precedent
The 1970 Geothermal Steam Act, which passed the Senate unanimously, was the first time Congress treated geothermal as a distinct federal energy resource with its own leasing framework — and it created the core legal infrastructure that still governs federal geothermal development today. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 was the last major reform, streamlining some lease sale requirements and requiring Interior-Agriculture coordination, but it delivered the oil and gas categorical exclusions that geothermal was left out of — the exact disparity H.R. 5631 is now closing. A prior attempt to fix this gap, the Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024 (a broader permitting overhaul championed by Sen. Joe Manchin), also included geothermal provisions but died in the Senate at the end of the 118th Congress without a floor vote — which is part of why standalone geothermal legislation like H.R. 5631 is being pushed now rather than waiting to be rescued by a broad permitting package.
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Current status
H.R. 5631 passed the U.S. House of Representatives by voice vote on June 2, 2026, after clearing the House Natural Resources Committee unanimously. "RFS" in the bill's designation stands for "Referred to Senate" — meaning it has crossed the chamber and is now awaiting Senate action. As of early August 2026, no Senate committee has scheduled a markup, and no floor vote has been scheduled. The bill can proceed one of three ways: the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee can hold its own markup and pass it to the Senate floor; Senate leadership can bring it directly to the floor for a unanimous consent vote (which requires no objector to object); or it can be folded into a larger energy or permitting package. The last path carries the most momentum but also the most political risk.
---
Sources:
- [H.R.5631 — Congress.gov, 119th Congress](https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/5631)
- [Geothermal reform package passes House, advances to Senate — Daily Energy Insider](https://dailyenergyinsider.com/news/52548-geothermal-reform-package-passes-house-advances-to-senate/)
- [House passes bipartisan measures to speed geothermal energy projects — Canary Media](https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/geothermal/house-passes-bipartisan-measures-speed-geothermal)
- [Support for H.R. 5631, the Geothermal Energy Advancement Act — U.S. Chamber of Commerce](https://www.uschamber.com/energy/support-for-h-r-5631-the-geothermal-energy-advancement-act)
- [CEBA Applauds House Passage of Bipartisan Geothermal Permitting Package — CEBA](https://ceba.org/ceba-applauds-house-passage-of-a-bipartisan-geothermal-permitting-package/)
- [Geothermal Energy Takes Center Stage — Beatty & Wozniak Energy Law](https://www.bwenergylaw.com/blog/2026/06/geothermal-energy-takes-center-stage-federal-legislation-advances-as-western-states-form-coalition/)
- [Cortez Masto, Murkowski Propose Roadmap for Next-Generation Geothermal — Senate.gov](https://www.cortezmasto.senate.gov/news/press-releases/cortez-masto-murkowski-propose-roadmap-for-development-of-next-generation-geothermal-infrastructure/)
- [Nevada geothermal power could grow 30-fold under new Senate bill — Las Vegas Sun](https://lasvegassun.com/news/2026/apr/30/nevada-geothermal-power-could-grow-30-fold-under-n/)
- [AI Data Center Growth Pushes Enhanced Geothermal Into the Energy Spotlight — SPE Journal of Petroleum Technology](https://jpt.spe.org/ai-data-center-growth-pushes-enhanced-geothermal-into-the-energy-spotlight)
- [Geothermal Energy Needs Permitting Reform — IFP](https://ifp.org/geothermal-energy-needs-permitting-reform/)
- [Suspend the Rules and Pass the Bill H.R. 5631 — docs.house.gov](https://docs.house.gov/billsthisweek/20260601/H5631_SUS_xml.pdf)
What to watch
The bill passed the House on June 2, 2026, by voice vote — an unusual show of consensus — but it has been sitting in the Senate for two months with no scheduled floor vote. Senate Energy Committee champions Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) and Murkowski (R-AK) have backed similar provisions for years, giving it a credible Senate path, but the open question is whether Senate leadership moves it as a standalone bill or holds it to bundle into a larger energy permitting package (where it could either gain momentum from a broader deal or get stuck in partisan gridlock). Citizens in western states with active geothermal resources — Nevada, Idaho, Utah, Colorado — have the most direct stake and their senators are the most logical pressure point. If the Senate doesn't act before the end of the 119th Congress in January 2027, the bill would have to start over.
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