Oren Cass writes in CNN about the need to reform environmental reviews.
- Onerous and outdated environmental reviews like the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) delay projects by years, stall environmental progress, and ultimately do more harm than good.
- Modernizing regulations should not excuse bad ecological practices, but rather incentivize innovation and investments.
- If progressives want to get the most bang for their federal buck under the Inflation Reduction Act, they should reform NEPA to make new energy and infrastructure projects less costly and delayed.
“The passion for preserving NEPA comes from environmental activists and lawyers who count on it to stall projects they have no legal basis to halt. This becomes obvious when they begin to list the many scary and polluting projects that they fear would move forward without sufficient NEPA review. But of course, laws already exist to prohibit a project that poses unacceptable environmental risk; it can be stopped without NEPA review. And if the activists wanted to put more projects off limits, they could lobby to make those laws tougher.”
Read the full article here.
The views and opinions expressed are those of the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of C3.
