Energy developers have clamored for years for legislation to speed up their projects. Congress wants to give it to them-and more.

On Wednesday, Republican and Democratic senators introduced sweeping legislation, the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act, that includes aggressive measures to fend off the permitting lags developers have long complained about.

Oil-and-gas companies have dealt with long delays securing the permits to erect new pipelines to ship their products to markets, along with yearslong lawsuits from environmental groups. They threw their support behind President Trump in part in the hope that a GOP-led Congress would help them cut through the red tape.

Meanwhile, wind and solar developers have wrangled with mounting local opposition to their projects and the transmission lines needed to connect them to power users. In recent years, both Republicans and Democrats have agreed that reforms were needed to build new projects at a time of soaring energy demand.

Among the measures in the bill:

Developers can sue the federal government over permits that were improperly delayed or unreasonably denied and be entitled to up to 100% of the total expected cost of building the project in damages.

In some cases of missed deadlines, the head of the agency is forbidden from traveling more than 25 miles "from their official duty station for the purposes of official business." The restriction ends when the agency has fixed the delay. It doesn't apply to the Secretary of Defense but applies to Commerce, Energy, Interior, Transportation and others.

The bill establishes a mandatory penalty for senior agency leadership when permitting delays occur due to conflicts between agencies: They must spend at least 50% of the workweek to remedy the failure.

The big carrot: The bill authorizes $20 million a year to bolster agencies that move forward on projects quickly and encourage public feedback, for the years 2027 to 2033.

The bill also makes it harder to challenge a permit in court. It introduces a slew of reforms aimed at strengthening the electric grid and mandates that data centers pay for all of their associated transmission costs.

The bill was introduced by Sens. Martin Heinrich (D., N.M.), Mike Lee (R., Utah), Shelley Moore Capito (R., W.Va.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D., R.I.).

Lawmakers said the bill should lower electricity costs measurably for Americans, increase clean power significantly, and significantly add construction and jobs across the country.

Drew Maloney, CEO of the Edison Electric Institute, a utility trade group, said it was encouraged by measures that streamline environmental permitting and create project certainty, and that it is reviewing the transmission provisions and how they might affect efforts to deliver electricity.

Some energy chief executives were quick to praise the legislation and called on Congress to pass the bill before the end of the year. The senators said they expected a vote on the bill after the midterm elections.

"For years, we have been talking about modernizing a broken permitting system that makes it far too difficult to build the energy infrastructure this country needs," said Toby Rice, CEO of natural gas producer EQT. "Now, we have a real opportunity to finally get it done."

Anne Bradbury, CEO of the American Exploration & Production Council, an oil-and-gas lobby, said the bill "would unlock generational investments to make energy more affordable and position America to win the global energy race that will define our future."