What’s Happening
The Biden Administration announced that it is rolling back one of President Trump’s regulatory reforms to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) yesterday afternoon. NEPA is our country’s environmental review process for major infrastructure projects, such as pipelines or clean energy installations.
As part of its first phase of planned changes, the White House’s Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) is revising the definition of environmental “effects” to include so-called “indirect” or “cumulative” impacts. This means that environmental reviews will have to evaluate how projects could exacerbate climate change and other issues such as local pollution, on top of their general review process.
Why Does It Matter
Regulation has a role to play in ensuring clean air and clean water for all Americans. As climate change threatens American infrastructure and public health, it is important that we protect our local communities from future harm.
However, our environmental review system requires modernizing. Currently, reviews under NEPA take an average of 4.5 years and $4.2 million to complete, adding significant delays to infrastructure projects.
Biden’s move to roll back Trump’s NEPA reforms risks moving us in the wrong direction on regulatory streamlining, by adding additional red tape, rather than expediting our permitting process.
My Take
America’s clean energy industry is ready to build, but outdated government regulations, such as the NEPA process, disproportionately harm climate projects. 42% of all energy projects delayed under NEPA are clean energy projects, as opposed to only 15% for fossil fuels.
Vineyard Wind, a proposed offshore wind farm in Massachusetts, for example, was originally proposed in 2009 but won’t deliver clean energy until the end of 2023 largely due to red tape.
Rather than adding more red tape to this process, we need to update and streamline our environmental review process. True reform means modernizing NEPA to increase efficiency and transparency, while maintaining high environmental standards.
Quote me on it
“We can only tackle climate change as quickly as we can build the clean energy infrastructure to do so. Instead of adding more red tape, we need to get out of the way. Only then can America’s entrepreneurs start building cleaner, faster, while maintaining high environmental standards and protecting our beautiful landscapes.” – National Policy Director Christopher Barnard