Over 200 environmental activist organizations signed a letter opposing a major bipartisan permitting reform bill currently before the U.S. Senate, and their combined 2024 revenues topped $430 million, according to a new report from Capital Research Center. The report highlights the substantial financial resources available to the American environmental movement even when its largest and most prominent groups—including the League of Conservation Voters, Natural Resources Defense Council, and Sierra Club—sit out of a campaign. The legislation in question, known as the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act of 2026, aims to streamline federal permitting and environmental review requirements that supporters say have become obstacles to both economic growth and environmental progress.
The report identifies at least 125 distinct tax-exempt nonprofits among the 222 organizational signatories, representing 56 percent of the total, whose detailed financial filings could be verified. The $431.2 million revenue figure draws almost entirely from 2024 tax filings, with only a half-dozen groups requiring 2023 or 2025 data when 2024 wasn't available. The report notes this is a conservative undercount because financial data isn't available for many signatories—either because they operate under fiscal sponsorship arrangements or because they're small enough to file simplified tax forms that don't require precise revenue disclosure. The fifteen largest signatories by 2024 revenue include the Center for Biological Diversity at $45.7 million, Greenpeace USA at $38.5 million, Defenders of Wildlife at $36 million, American Bird Conservancy at $26.9 million, and Food & Water Watch at $22.2 million.
The letter's signatories argued that "the environmental damage that will occur due to the rollbacks and weakening of the nation's environmental laws outweigh the potential emissions reductions that would occur in the future," according to the report. They also speculated that if Democrats win control of one or both chambers in the midterm elections, "a better package" might be secured. Supporters of permitting reform have pointed out that the biggest names in American conservation—groups with nine-figure revenues in 2024, including the Nature Conservancy which alone brought in more than $1.4 billion that year—were noticeably absent from the opposition letter.
The report explains that current permitting delays are substantial: a new mine reportedly takes an average of 29 years to successfully navigate the American permitting process, the second-longest timeline in the world behind only Zambia. The Bipartisan Policy Center, which backs the legislation, noted that "a permitting system created to protect the environment against industrial pollution more than 50 years ago has morphed into a system that is bad for both the economy and the environment." The biggest regulatory contributors to these delays involve laws that the reform bill now seeks to address, including the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, and the National Historic Preservation Act. The legislation has attracted support from a remarkably diverse coalition spanning environmental organizations like Citizens Climate Lobby and Ceres, free-market advocates such as the Pacific Legal Foundation and Americans for Prosperity, labor unions, business associations, industry groups, and left-leaning think tanks.
The report concludes it remains to be seen how the permitting reform bill will fare in Congress and how the country's biggest environmental groups will ultimately position themselves—some have been equivocal in their public statements. But even at this early stage, the bill's declared opponents have no shortage of resources to wage their campaign.