Energy, Environment & Infrastructure
Permitting Delays
You can't build America in triplicate. NEPA reviews measured in years strangle the same projects everyone claims to want.
The Stakes
A clean-energy transmission line, a wildfire-resilient water project, a new bridge — the families who need them don't experience permitting as paperwork. They experience it as a decade of nothing. An engineer hired out of college can be near retirement before the project she was hired to build turns a single shovel of dirt. We have made it easier to litigate a project than to build one, and the cost is paid by everyone who waits — for cheaper power, safer roads, and the jobs that come with construction that actually starts.
The Receipts
Every figure cites a primary federal source. Tap a chip to check it yourself.
~4.5 yearsFrom 2010 to 2018, the average federal Environmental Impact Statement took about four and a half years from notice of intent to final statement; CEQ's own data put the typical EIS at over 600 pages.
CEQ ↗600+ pagesThe average Environmental Impact Statement runs well over 600 pages, with many far longer — documents few of the people affected will ever read but that fuel years of review and litigation.
CEQ ↗~2.6 TWAt the end of 2023, roughly 2.6 terawatts of generation and storage sat in interconnection queues — more than twice the entire existing U.S. generating fleet — much of it stalled waiting on transmission study and approval.
DOE / Berkeley Lab ↗~5 years in queueA typical project completed in 2022 spent about five years in the interconnection queue, up from under two years in 2008 — the line and the plant may be ready long before permission is.
DOE / Berkeley Lab ↗Little trackedGAO found that agencies keep so little data on NEPA reviews that even the government cannot reliably say how long most analyses take or what they cost — you cannot fix what you refuse to measure.
GAO ↗Their Best Argument — and Why It Fails
The steelman
Environmental review exists for a reason. NEPA gives communities — often poor and rural ones — a voice before a pipeline or highway is bulldozed through their backyard, and gutting it would let polluters move fast and break the places people live.
The rebuttal
Process and protection are not the same thing, and conservatives should defend the second while fixing the first. A four-and-a-half-year average EIS does not produce cleaner outcomes; it produces litigation, abandoned projects, and dirtier status-quo infrastructure that stays in place because the cleaner replacement never got built. The interconnection backlog is overwhelmingly solar, wind, and storage — the very projects the law's defenders say they want, strangled by the law's own delay. Real protection means clear standards, hard deadlines, and one decision that holds — not endless pages that enrich lawyers and punish the patient.
The Conservative Fix
- 1
Set firm statutory deadlines for NEPA reviews — two years for an EIS, one for an EA — with page limits and a single lead agency.
Federal - 2
Narrow the window and standing for serial litigation that re-opens already-completed reviews.
Federal - 3
Reform interconnection: cluster studies and 'first-ready, first-served' rules so live projects aren't held hostage by speculative ones.
Federal - 4
Expand categorical exclusions for transmission upgrades on existing rights-of-way and routine grid work.
Federal - 5
Adopt state-level permitting shot-clocks and one-stop review for projects within state jurisdiction.
State
Answer the Muster
Who decides this: Your U.S. House member and Senators (NEPA and interconnection rules are federal)
I'm a constituent in [district]. We can't build the energy, water, and transportation projects we need because federal permitting takes years and invites endless lawsuits. I'm asking [Official] to support hard NEPA deadlines, page limits, and interconnection reform. Where does [he/she] stand?