Speeding up environmental reviews is good for the economy and the environment

Jonathan Wood

In 2011, President Obama issued a presidential memorandum urging federal agencies to “take steps to expedite permitting and review,” including “setting clear schedules for completing steps in the environmental review and permitting process.” Such bureaucratic delays, Obama explained, interfered with the “engine of job creation and economic growth[.]” In recognizing the significant costs that excess bureaucracy imposes, Obama was in good company. Presidents of both political parties long have sought to make the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) — a federal statute that requires agencies to produce reports on the environmental effects on their actions — work for the American people...This month, President Trump’s Council on Environmental Quality proposed the most comprehensive reworking of NEPA regulations in four decades, intending to finally solve some of these problems. Among the changes outlined are a formal goal of completing environmental reviews within two years, establishing a presumptive page limit of 300 pages, and clarifying how agencies should decide what environmental effects to focus on. Critics of the proposal charge that this undermines public participation and informed decision-making. The first objection can be answered easily. Most people reading this never have seen — much less attempted to read — a draft environmental impact statement, and the few who tried to review one likely got discouraged well before they reached page 1,000 of the document. A complicated, years-long process favors litigious special-interest groups at the expense of participation by ordinary people. Informed, reasoned decision-making is a goal that few oppose. But in NEPA’s case, agencies extensively analyzing every minor or speculative impact can have a significant cost and one that likely exceeds any benefit. Nor is this simply an economic development versus the environment issue. The delays and expense associated with an overly bureaucratic process also pose real environmental costs. Most directly, they deplete funds that agencies otherwise might spend advancing their missions. More significant, if less obvious, is that NEPA’s delays and expenses can undermine innovation. Erecting substantial obstacles to new facilities creates a competitive advantage for existing competitors, even if those existing facilities have more significant adverse environmental impacts. Finally, doing nothing risks wholesale exemptions from environmental review for politically salient projects. Congress has authorized the president to waive a host of environmental regulations to build border infrastructure and has considered similar exemptions for other infrastructure projects. A more efficient NEPA process likely would reduce political pressure for such exemptions...MORE