SINKING IN
BUREAUCRACY
law that prevailed before 2012, two
to three years was typical time from
initial application to approval, although some applications took as
long as six years,” Maxeiner noted.
“Ten years was unheard of — and
in January of this year the law was
amended to expedite approvals.
I have not seen target times, but
I surmise that the idea is to have
resolution within one to two years.”
Philip K. Howard, the founder
of Common Good and the author
of several books on the need to
simplify regulatory processes in
the U.S., has called for a similar
“infrastructure super-authority”
here. Such a body, Howard recently
wrote, would be “created with the
mandate to approve certain new
projects within one year of application — including roads, bridges,
win d and solar farms, and power
lines. For interstate projects, the
super-authority should have the
power to cut through federal, state,
and local red tape. Judicial review
should be limited to jurisdictional
issues, and should be resolved in
the timeframe of a preliminary injunction — no more than 60 days.”
Despite protestations from a
variety of environmental groups,
a bill aimed at significantly speeding up the impact review for pro-
HUFFINGTON
03.10.13
posed transportation projects was
signed into law in the U.S. last year.
Among other things, it calls for
smaller projects receiving less than
$5 million in federal funds to be excluded from environmental review
all together.
But even those calling for infrastructure permitting reform often
say the problem isn’t necessarily environmental law as written,
but the way in which it is implemented. “Proposals for environmental streamlining originating
in Congress often overlook opportunities to overhaul policies
and procedures within the current
legal framework for environmental review,” said Petra Todorovich,
director of RPA’s America 2050
program, in a statement accompanying the “Getting Infrastructure
Going” report. “Contrary to current thinking, our study found that
more federal involvement, not less,
tends to speed up environmental
reviews of major projects.”
Whatever the solution, it will
need to be found quickly if the nation hopes to address the growing
climate crisis in a serious way. In
its 2011 climate assessment, the
National Research Council stated
that the nation must cut greenhouse emissions by 80 percent by
2050 merely to stabilize the concentration of heat-trapping gases
in the atmosphere. The electric-