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I’ve recently started a new tradition on my commutes to work. When the Pittsburgh Steelers win, I listen to my favorite Steelers podcasts for the next week. When the Steelers lose, I listen to an audiobook instead.
So it is with a heavy heart that I say I’ve listened to three books this past month.
The first, Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, covered the labyrinth of permitting, zoning, and other regulations that prevent Americans from building the housing, clean energy, and science and technology infrastructure we need. The second, Warp Speed by Paul Mango, chronicled the U.S. government’s most-recent-yet-least-discussed groundbreaking achievement: developing a COVID-19 vaccine in under a year, shattering the previous record to develop a vaccine (about 4 years to develop one for mumps) and saving countless lives around the world, and doing it by cutting through much of that aforementioned red tape. The third, Neighborhood Defenders by David M. Glick, Katherine Levine Einstein, and Maxwell Palmer, detailed how local planning and zoning meetings meant to epitomize inclusive, democratic, participatory politics actually result in a small group of wealthier homeowners blocking new housing developments across America.
And then, we beat the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday. So no more books. I hope.
Thankfully, I’m not the only one thinking about permitting laws. A few months ago, Congressmen Bruce Westerman (R-AR) and Jared Golden (D-ME) introduced the bipartisan Standardizing Permitting and Expediting Economic Development (SPEED) Act, a permitting reform bill that proposes significant changes to the 1970 National Environmental Policy Act with the goal of making it easier to build new infrastructure in America. Excellent acronym work as always. Interestingly, there are prominent Democrats and Freedom Caucus Republicans opposing the bill as well. I gather that the House plans to vote on the bill next week, and discussions amongst senators have begun as well.
And I say “I gather” because news coverage on this bipartisan bill, which tackles a pivotal affordability and climate issue, is nearly nonexistent.
I don’t know whether the SPEED Act is a step in the right direction or not. My instinct is that it’s positive, though it’s a lot of bureaucratic legalese that I had trouble parsing. But at least they’re trying. Permitting — the government system used to approve “major federal actions” such as federally funded infrastructure or infrastructure on federal land and make sure these projects follow environmental rules — is a good thing in theory. Agencies study a project’s impacts, solicit public input, and try to catch problems before they happen. But in practice, the system has become so slow, expensive, and confusing that it often works against its own goals. The average Environmental Impact Statement now takes 4.5 years to complete and costs $1.4 million, and that’s only one step in a much longer approval chain. Crucially, these delays stall and often derail projects meant to help the environment, like building clean energy, installing transmission lines, managing forests for wildfire prevention, and restoring wetlands. Proponents of reform have argued that these laws, while environmental in name, are now doing far more environmental harm than good.
A month ago, I thought permitting was a niche passion project at some think tanks that could lead to some bipartisanship, but nothing major. Now, I believe permitting is a dire issue at the center of our affordability crisis and climate crisis. The SPEED Act represents incremental change, but solving these crises demands a bold and transformative shift in how we permit, approve, and construct nearly everything. And now, as a 26-year-old with no political experience who read three whole books, I am going to share my wacky idea for how we do it.