ISSUE BRIEF: Reform NEPA to Promote Renewable Energy
Keep NEPA from unnecessary energy regulations!
The Issue:
The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is the umbrella statute covering all other environmental laws of the United States. Over the past 35 years, through litigation and expanding regulations, it has become a cumbersome and unwieldy law routinely used by those who wish to frustrate any economic activities on public lands.
Among those impacted activities is renewable energy development. With domestic energy demands on the rise, renewable energy sources are becoming an increasingly important contributor to the nation's fuel mix. However, just like other infrastructure projects, renewable energy generation and transmission facilities seeking to be sited on federal lands get stuck in the morass that is NEPA today.
Opponents to development routinely use the NEPA process to delay and expand the scope of environmental inquiry, all with an eye toward rendering proposed activities uneconomic. One tactic is to force federal officials to consider so many alternatives, such as different locations and project size, that the process is delayed and expenses are increased. Since renewable projects usually require tight margins to be competitive, any delay and extra expense can force proponents to abandon projects altogether.
Impacts on the West:
The expansive and open-ended nature of the NEPA process can add millions of dollars to the start-up costs to renewable energy projects. As a result, it can and does render many such projects uneconomic.
Solutions:
- The Administration should to move
forward with NEPA reforms that can be made through the
regulatory process in order to spur renewable energy production.
- Congress should look at additional NEPA
reforms and pass legislation that fundamentally reforms the Act.
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