The bill would significantly curtail scope of the federal environmental review process.
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SPEED Act passes in House despite changes that threaten clean power projects
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Hey, look at that, "reasonable Dems" fucked around and found out that there is no deal with blind greedy mfs and zealots. These people have very clear goals and you trying to dance around issue to squeeze out something you can wave at shareholders / stakeholders and lobbyists not gonna work.
This is what is a curse of modern era. Zealots have found out that money people are just dumb and easy to take for a ride.
This is what is a curse of modern era. Zealots have found out that money people are just dumb and easy to take for a ride.
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NEPA has become really cumbersome over the years. It's essential we find the balance behind it's nearly impossible to build new infrastructure permitting and go fast and break things infrastructure permitting in order to provide solutions to problems we face. I'm not optimistic about this bill though.
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ubercurmudgeon
Ars Tribunus Militum
There I was thinking it was so named because its proponents contend that the US economy would implode if CO2 growth in the atmosphere were to drop below 50 ppm per decade.
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Money people have also realised that realistically we've probably got less that a decade left of even a marginally functional society and environment, at least by western standards. We've blown through all the tipping points and now its just rats on a sinking ship - hoard wealth and resources and be one of the 0.0001% who can buy their way out of total ecosystem collapse, at least for a few years, and fuck everyone else.
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In a public statement following Thursday’s vote, Davis described the amended SPEED Act as “a fossil fuel giveaway that cuts out community input and puts our health and safety at risk to help big polluters.”
Come on, man. Everyone knows pollution is a hoax, perpetuated by the same radical left zealots that want America's sons to identify as catgirls. Nowhere in the Bible - the most popular book in short-stay hookup-hotel everywhere - does it say chemicals are bad. Satan, yes. Chemicals... no.
The deep state has you convinced that lead is bad. If lead is so bad, how come it keeps out radiation, which is also supposedly bad? Makes. No. Sense.
Like COVID, climate-change and the value of common courtesy, pollution is a fraud meant to keep you from drinking as much floor-cleaner as you want.
Wake up and fight for your right to ingest as many chemicals as you can. Except Meth, because screw Canada.
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Yes, that's all meant to be comedic parody. Gotta vent frustration somewhere.
Come on, man. Everyone knows pollution is a hoax, perpetuated by the same radical left zealots that want America's sons to identify as catgirls. Nowhere in the Bible - the most popular book in short-stay hookup-hotel everywhere - does it say chemicals are bad. Satan, yes. Chemicals... no.
The deep state has you convinced that lead is bad. If lead is so bad, how come it keeps out radiation, which is also supposedly bad? Makes. No. Sense.
Like COVID, climate-change and the value of common courtesy, pollution is a fraud meant to keep you from drinking as much floor-cleaner as you want.
Wake up and fight for your right to ingest as many chemicals as you can. Except Meth, because screw Canada.
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Yes, that's all meant to be comedic parody. Gotta vent frustration somewhere.
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Are you saying “they shouldn’t have attempted to create legislation at all”? They pulled support when that amendment was added.
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It's a shame that everything done by this administration is about nothing more than making more money for them and their friends. Whoever pays more and provides a gold statue gets their way. It's not about what is right for the people or the country. It's about enriching those at the top even more, no matter the short- or long-term consequences.
Hopefully this will be a study for others to learn from in the future. I don't think it will end well when you make science political and pull funding from universities and new technologies and pretty much try to stop any advancement because it is "woke".
Hopefully this will be a study for others to learn from in the future. I don't think it will end well when you make science political and pull funding from universities and new technologies and pretty much try to stop any advancement because it is "woke".
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So, I’m a NEPA guy. Been doing it for over 15 years in one way or another, been lead author on a bunch of EAs and a couple of EISs for various agencies, reviewed them for EPA, taught classes on incorporating requirements of section 106 of the NHPA to into the NEPA process. I have seen agencies fucking around, and I have watched with popcorn when they refused to listen and had to find out via lawsuits.
Knock on effects, cumulative and indirect impacts, are part of why NEPA exists. Forcing agencies to acknowledge them is one of its greatest strengths. Removing those requirements is short-sighted and stupid, because they are what force planners to analyze all the impacts - the ones that accrue over time and after the execution phase - instead of cherry picking those most obviously directly tied to the project’s construction and execution. Because if you give most proponents this inch, they will take a mile, because it is in their interest to pretend that impacts end five feet from the wall and ten seconds after the certificate of occupancy gets signed. Except it turns out that oh, wow, viewshed impacts matter in that historic district, or there's lawsuits coming down like hail, or there's a couple thousand people chaining themselves to the road, what could possibly have forewarned us
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In every single occasion in which I have seen someone proposing, funding, or executing a project complaining about NEPA being "synonymous with red tape and waste" or some similar beef-witted utterance, it has been their fault. Every fucking time. And they were warned. They waited too long before grudgingly admitting they'd have to do an EA and legal told them they can't skate by on a CATEX, or they override some important requirement because schedule or they're flabbergasted that a stakeholder wants to consult, and they didn't start any of those processes early enough, and now it's crunch time and funding is going to get pulled and they're big mad. It's like the meme of the kid inserting a stick in the wheel of their own bike - "we don't have to contact all those Native American tribes do we? I'm pretty sure we don't have any endangered species issues. Do we really have to do public scoping meetings?" And I'm there like uh, yes, yes, and yes, per my previous emails attached it would be a very bad idea to do what you want to do, here's my opinion as your environmental planning function, note I have cc'd my boss, his boss, your boss, and her boss on this email.
And they're like nope, fuck it, we ball
And then, sure as sunrise, "WAHT A DELAY?!? OH NO A RED TAPE WHO COULD HAVE POSSIBLY WARNED US OF THIS UNFORESEEABLE OUTCOME shut the fuck up Snark nobody likes the guy saying I told you so OH NO A PREDICAMENT IS ME! CLEARLY IT IS NEPA THAT IS THE PROBLEM"
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The Dem lead on this, Jared Golden, is retiring. This sure looks like a way to feather his post-Congress nest.
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Speed Kills. Or, alternative, when Golden was interviewed about why he voted for Speed, he replied "You still don’t get it, Jack, huh? The beauty of it. A bill is made to be passed, that’s its meaning, its purpose. Your life is empty because you spend it trying to stop the bill from passing. And for who, for what? Do you know, Jack, what a bill is that doesn’t pass? It is a cheap gold watch, buddy."
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It's so ironic, that removal of NEPA protections would also impact his district (Maryland's Eastern Shore) disproportionately.
When their yacht clubs and farms are threatened by any sort of project, I wonder what those idiots will rely on now
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I used to work in manufacturing. I helped lay out assembly lines for new products and worked with the product design engineers. We always had those dumb looking warning decals on our products that showed things like the user putting their hand in the blade with the circle and slash through it. I commented to one of the engineers one day that those decals seemed pointless because nobody is that dumb. He told me every one of those decals is there because someone did the action and tried to sue the company for being at fault.
I think regulations are like that. They don't appear out of thin air. Most exist because bad actors did things that harmed markets or people. A reduction in the rate those bad things happening isn't a valid reason to eliminate regulation.
I think regulations are like that. They don't appear out of thin air. Most exist because bad actors did things that harmed markets or people. A reduction in the rate those bad things happening isn't a valid reason to eliminate regulation.
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Is this a serious question? They’ll rely on their greatest and most obvious asset: money.
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I thought that the bill was the street name for amphetamines, since so many of this kakistocracy dominated administration act like they really are (like the ketamine and hallucinogens punk) on illicit street drugs. Democrats voting for a Felon45 sponsored bill shows just how stupid some of them are.
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That only works for the ones with money. We count a ton of the eastern shore as small towns/disadvantaged. The rich aren't the majority of votes even if the SP has basically made money = representation.
I'd say I feel bad for those districts, but they're getting what they asked for, even if they didn't understand what it was
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As a clean energy and transit advocate, I find myself conflicted on NEPA reform. The latest amendment obviously turned this bill into shit.
But I'm confused by the idea that NEPA doesn't significantly burden new green construction:
Are resource constraints not a burden for organizations who lack those resources? Doesn't it at least tilt the field toward the largest incumbent developers who can brute force the staffing by virtue of their wealth? Or are there readily-available, high-quality, affordable "we do your NEPA" services for all the smaller, less experienced developers?
What room is there for NEPA reform without tearing out knock-on/culmulative effects, and while continuing to disfavor unsustainable projects like fossil fuel infrastructure? Perhaps an expedited review process for projects that are provably fighting climate change?
Highway projects are already given dedicated federal resources for NEPA reviews, while transit project agencies are left to fend for themselves -- and if you're an American, you understand that anemic transit budgets means staffing is a real constraint there.
But I'm confused by the idea that NEPA doesn't significantly burden new green construction:
Are resource constraints not a burden for organizations who lack those resources? Doesn't it at least tilt the field toward the largest incumbent developers who can brute force the staffing by virtue of their wealth? Or are there readily-available, high-quality, affordable "we do your NEPA" services for all the smaller, less experienced developers?
What room is there for NEPA reform without tearing out knock-on/culmulative effects, and while continuing to disfavor unsustainable projects like fossil fuel infrastructure? Perhaps an expedited review process for projects that are provably fighting climate change?
Highway projects are already given dedicated federal resources for NEPA reviews, while transit project agencies are left to fend for themselves -- and if you're an American, you understand that anemic transit budgets means staffing is a real constraint there.
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This is what people voted for because they are single issue voters. Intelligence, and long-term thinking, left the building a couple of decades ago.
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Same in Quebec. Our current government thinks the BAPE (basically NEPA) is burdensome, so it bypasses it, so the burden explodes as we get vandalism and lawsuits instead of studies and public hearings.
The government made a big industrial policy bet on batteries — a perfect match between our 100% renewable grid and massive 3-season overcapacity. They completely whiffed it, and mucking with the approvals process was a big part of the reason.
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Is it really impossible to build new infrastructure, though? Is it really? The link in the article to the Center for Progressive Reform doesn't suggest it is:
In all the years I've done NEPA, completion of the document was rarely if ever the cumbersome part. If there were delays, it was usually because (in no particular ranking) the proponent did not start the NEPA process until well after the project was actually scoped and designed, the proponent tried to pencil-whip a major consultation process like Section 106 or Section 7 that ended up being a big deal, the document had fundamental analysis flaws or failed to adequately (and actually) evaluate practicable alternatives, or outside parties used bad-faith lawsuits to slow down the project for idiosyncratic reasons.
This is what I tell proponents all the time: use me. I'm the environmental planner. I am here to plan how to make their project compliant. I am here to support them, not slow them down. The earlier I am involved in a project, the earlier you start consulting with stakeholders, and the more thoroughly one involves an environmental planner throughout, the better. If you're required to evaluate a full range of practicable alternatives anyway, do that in good faith and with an open mind! I have seen projects substantially improved by input from the NEPA folks in its very earliest scoping stages. The more they try to slow-walk it, sidestep requirements, gloss over impacts in the analysis, or rush things, the worse the outcome is, without exceptions.
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Astroturf pro-fascism group name if I ever heard one… and then I read their policy positions and they actually seem like 20th century republicans. Like, I quibble with the details but generally it seems reasonable. Weird.
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Yup. The one I'm currently using as my object lesson is the Thirty Meter Telescope in Hawaii. NSF treated Hawaiians as a nuisance rather than consulting in good faith, and an immensely valuable telescope project is shelved, probably forever. There were SO many avoidable errors made in the NEPA/Section 106 process. And now, some want to whiff another project in much the same way, for many of the same reasons. It makes me want to scream.
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Yeah, I agree with both your premise and conclusion. Assuming it passes, how long will it be, too, before the issue is revisited now that Congress has "done" something about it?
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So did both you and Markus ignore the article, or...? You don't need to take it from me.
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Cat_Herder
Wise, Aged Ars Veteran
Flip side: the law has prevented wholesale trashing of the environment due to project creators not wanting to acknowledge/deal with the negative side effects of their projects.
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As someone in oil and gas, all this does is put America behind other countries.
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I mean, the telling thing here is that the bill does almost nothing to improve the NEPA process. It doesn't allocate more resources, it doesn't improve staffing, it doesn't streamline reviewing.
It primarily creates a bunch of exceptions and makes community participation harder, and apparently even creates biases against more environmentally friendly project (per that recent amendment).
So I don't think there's any need to be conflicted here. NEPA has problems, but this is nakedly an anti-environmental agenda and nothing else.
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Of course not. We elect them to the Presidency and majorities in both houses of Congress.
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Republicans have no shame and will do anything and say anything to achieve their goal of a fascist state where billionaires make the rules and the government enforces the rules. Any democrat that thinks they can work with these traitors to democracy is out of touch with reality.
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We MUST vote these redumplican fukkers out of office and remove their sycophants from positions of power EVERYWHERE. The health of our planet and the lives of millions of people are in serious jeopardy.
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I look forward to a return of rivers that can catch on fire and acid rain. Sh*t that was a thing in the 70's and 80's but has been all but forgotten because we hold, or did, company's accountable for their BS behavior. Now? YOLO it. Who cares.
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Good luck on that as the gerrymandering is real. By the time midterms are up next fall, they will probably have all kinds of crap locked in place.
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