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Democrats at the state and national levels have embraced a slew of deadlines to hasten their goal of a renewable energy future. Nevada, for instance, seeks to produce 50 percent of its energy from green sources by 2030 and to be fully converted by 2050.
One problem, however, is that many of these mandates are not based on anything remotely resembling economic reality. Another snag is that the same green activists who demand an immediate transition from fossil fuels also favor a heavy-handed regulatory state erecting barriers to all new energy projects — renewable or not.
Consider that the Biden administration seeks a large expansion of energy produced by offshore wind farms and has designated funds to upgrade ports to facilitate shipment of the necessary components. Yet, as Reason magazine reported last week, “the biggest impediment to the federal government’s attempted development of offshore wind is, it turns out, the federal government.”
Indeed, most planned wind projects are tied up in federal permitting hell, where the process can drag out for years and opponents have a chance to stop construction. While the United States currently has the offshore wind farms capable of generating 42 megawatts of electricity, projects that could produce more than 18,500 megawatts are in limbo, many the target of NIMBY environmental activists.
A similar problem plagues the construction of large-scale solar installations.
Senate Democrats picked up Sen. Joe Manchin’s support for the comically named Inflation Reduction Act by agreeing to consider proposals that would streamline federal approval of energy projects. The legislation itself includes more money for various regulatory agencies under the assumption that additional bureaucrats will hasten the permitting process. It’s more likely the opposite is true.
“This problem isn’t going to get fixed by throwing money at it,” Mario Loyola, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told Bloomberg Law. “The problem is structural. It’s not that we don’t have enough people, it’s that the permitting process is insane.”
In fact, Democrats — particularly progressives in the House — have no interest in structural reform of the administrative state. Quite the opposite. They place great faith in central planning and see a corpulent bureaucracy as a mechanism of checking rapacious capitalists.
Yet any green energy revolution will require a large build-out of infrastructure to both produce and transmit the energy necessary to power the American economy. That can’t be done without some environmental disruption. And, to this point, green activists appear more inclined to favor inflicting economic pain by limiting energy development than to clearing the way for the very projects they claim are vital to saving mankind from extinction.
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