Fixing the U.S. Infrastructure Permitting Process
At the heart of infrastructure is a lengthy and costly permitting review process, and according to a recent article by City Journal, the key to improving our nation’s built environment and resource capacity is to make such a system much more efficient.
According to the article, Everyone knows that Washington is broken. Reformers on the right want to cut useless programs, and reformers on the left want to streamline rules and procedures. But neither reform approach will remove the red tape that suffocates common sense. There’s always another rule, another process needed to discuss a new issue.
Americans are harmed, not helped, by all this process. In a 2015 Common Good report, I found that a six-year delay more than doubles the effective cost of projects, and usually causes environmental harm by prolonging infrastructure bottlenecks.
The modern state is built on a flawed philosophy of law. Governing requires officials, not law, to make decisions. Approving infrastructure projects requires judgments about tradeoffs, which are unavoidably subjective. Officials making those judgments should be politically accountable but not delayed by years of legal handwringing. The operating structure of government should be remade to strive for results, not procedural compliance.
