Reforming or Re-imagining NEPA

The National Environmental Policy Act has noble goals but its core principle of enforcement via lawsuits and veto points leads to continuously expanding needless requirements, costs and delays, including to green projects. What we have now is not what anyone wanted or intended. The underlying structure frustrates most attempts at incremental reform.

Moving towards a time-limited cost-benefit approach with negotiation and collaboration among real stakeholders and a robust independent analysis funded by development interests, followed by a deliberative governmental go or no-go decision, could better safeguard our environment and communities.

Please note that this topic introduction is preliminary, and more details as well as policy proposals, academic studies, data, model legislation, and other resources on this issue are forthcoming. We share this overview now to provide initial context and give readers a sense of our current perspective and approach to the issue.