Clearing a Path for New Infrastructure: The Trump administration is right to streamline the environmental-review process.

City Journal ^ | January 21, 2020 | Eli Dourado

[karpov]

The United States seems incapable of developing modern infrastructure, despite bipartisan support for that goal. Since 2008, China has built more than 15,000 miles of high-speed rail, while the U.S. has built none and is unlikely to do so anytime soon. According to the American Society of Civil Engineers’ most recent report card, the U.S. scores a D+ on infrastructure.

Environmental review plays a major role in America’s infrastructure paralysis. As a consequence of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1970 (NEPA), “major Federal actions” that could “significantly affect” the human environment must be accompanied by an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS)—a process that often takes years. Between 2010 and 2017, the Department of Transportation completed 170 EISs, taking an average of six and a half years each. In the EIS preparation stage, no groundbreaking or other work can occur, a restriction that applies both to federal projects and to private ones that require federal permits. When a private project needs a federal permit, the burden to perform the environmental review usually falls on the private entity.

Projects with limited, if any, environmental impact must still obtain EIS exemptions through an Environmental Assessment (EA) document. The federal government produces an estimated 10,000 EAs annually. Many run hundreds of pages long.

All that paperwork might be worth the trouble if NEPA really protected the environment. But environmental review is a procedural hurdle, not a conservationist step. Even if an EIS identifies negative environmental effects, an agency remains within its rights to proceed with the project or approval, as the Supreme Court has affirmed. NEPA provides no substantive protections. The lawsuits that NEPA generates get resolved by EIS revisions, not by the application of better environmental standards.

[karpov]

Good. It should not take 6.5 years to create an Environmental Impact Statement.

[Pelham]

” As a consequence of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1970 (NEPA)”

Even people who lived through those years often fail to realize how similar Nixon and establishment Republicans were to Lyndon Johnson liberal Democrats.

The EPA, wage and price controls, breaking the dollar’s last link to gold, and a no win policy in Vietnam were all Nixon administration policies.

[gibsonguy]

Nixon did a lot of damage, hard to believe but I think he was naive when it came to the insatiable appetite for controlling the people Government agencies have. I think he would be horrified to see what the EPA has become.

[faithhopecharity]

imho, we need to be aware and respectful of the environment (after all, its the only one we got)
but the current process is absurd!

maybe start by imposing a reasonable time limit for final approvals? though, the whole thing needs serious reform, streamlining (and no need of both fed AND state bureaucrappies doing almost same thing!)