American Dynamism Starts Here
Why NEPA is bad and we should fix it
On Wednesday, a colleague and I published a piece on
, arguing that America’s flagship environmental review law is bad and in desperate need of reform. I’ve been banging my spoon on the high chair about this for a couple years now, starting with a piece for the Washington Free Beacon about how green groups are stopping us from building clean and abundant geothermal energy. Expect this battle, between pro-growth Americanists and legacy green groups, to stay relevant, as new technological breakthroughs make geothermal energy a more enticing investment.But here’s the piece for Noah:
The TL;DR is something like this:
NEPA, the law requiring federal agencies to account for every potential environmental impact of their projects, creates incredible friction for doing anything. In particular, NEPA roadblocks clean energy projects, which creates a conundrum for environmentalists. More traditional, Sierra Club-style environmentalists defend NEPA, which makes sense from an emotional perspective: its passage in 1970 was one of the landmark victories of the environmental movement. But when NEPA’s defenders say it doesn’t harm clean energy, they’re wrong, and they’re missing four facts.
The data that suggests NEPA reviews only take a couple years are cherry-picked.
A huge chunk of all infrastructure projects get sued because of NEPA.
There’s lots more in the full piece, and I’d encourage you to read it and share it with your friends. Here it is again.