issue: Energy & Environment

Bledsoe for Medium: In Both U.S. and UK, Overtaxing Voters is Bad Climate Politics

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

By Paul Bledsoe

No political comparison is as discordant to British ears as one suggesting commonality with the American scene, particularly with Donald Trump still at large. Nonetheless, recent UK contretemps over energy taxes and climate policy may find an illustrative corollary in U.S. politics and prove the exception to the rule.

The decision this week by mayor Sadiq Khan to extend the Ultra-low Emissions Zone (ULEZ) tax to almost all of greater London may be justified in terms of helping air quality, but it is still questionable politics for a Labour Party attempting to regain power for the first time in 13 years.

Keep reading in Medium.

Maag and Sykes for The Messenger: Is Our Workforce Ready for a Successful Green Energy Transition?

Posted on by dcadmin

By Taylor Maag and Elan Sykes

Over the past two years, the Biden administration has made large national investments aimed at putting America ahead in the global race to develop clean energy industries and jobs. Investment is flowing all across the country, for projects like solar panel factories in Louisiana, energy-efficient apartment buildings in New York and electric vehicle battery factories sprouting everywhere from Georgia to Michigan.

This emphasis on a green transition comes at an important time. Just last week, our nation’s deadliest wildfire killed at least 111 people and destroyed Maui’s historic town of Lahaina. While detailed studies have not yet determined exactly how climate change influenced Maui’s fire, climate scientists have pointed to specific climate-driven factors, and existing attribution science suggests that climate change fuels warmer temperatures, less rainfall, stronger storms and powerful winds — increasing the likelihood of devastating events like this. It’s clear there is no time like the present to create a lower-emissions economy, mitigate climate impacts and protect public safety.

Yet, even with increased federal attention, implementing investments and new solutions has become difficult. One reason is our workforce. The rapidly growing clean energy sector is bumping up against serious labor constraints — facing challenges filling jobs and ensuring workers have the right skills for these positions. In the next seven years, there are expected to be over 550,000 new energy-transition jobs in the U.S. Just in 2022, U.S. green job postings on LinkedIn jumped 20% — yet, the pool of workers with the skills required to fill these jobs only grew by 8.4%.

Read more.

This story was originally published in The Messenger on August 20, 2023.

 

One Year Later, the IRA has Made Strides in Clean Energy Transition and Created Opportunities for Working Families

Posted on by Alyssa Brown

Elan Sykes, Energy Policy Analyst at the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) released the following statement on the one-year anniversary of President Biden signing the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the largest-ever investment into clean energy technology, into law.

“The Inflation Reduction Act is a historic inflection point in America’s progress toward clean energy investment, and decarbonization. This legislation creates opportunities for working-class families across the country through its monumental investment in manufacturing, working to lower energy costs for all Americans during a time of record inflation. However, there is much more work to be done.

“Maximizing the benefits of the IRA will require Congress and the Biden Administration to reduce barriers to deployment in the federal permitting process, expand secure supply chains domestically and in partnership with global allies, and increase the skilled clean energy workforce going forward. PPI calls on the Biden Administration and both parties in Congress to work pragmatically to secure a cleaner, brighter future for American Energy.”

Sykes, along with Paul Bledsoe, Strategic Advisor at PPI, recently released a report on a new ambitious approach to permitting reform. The report proposes a fundamental change to the permitting process by utilizing new analytics, scoping, and mapping technologies that can provide federal agencies and regulators the tools they need to comprehensively approve large batches of projects together, instead of individually reviewing projects.

The Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) is a catalyst for policy innovation and political reform based in Washington, D.C. Its mission is to create radically pragmatic ideas for moving America beyond ideological and partisan deadlock. Learn more about PPI by visiting progressivepolicy.org.

Follow the Progressive Policy Institute.

More from PPI’s Energy and Climate Solutions Initiative.

Find an expert at PPI.

###

Media Contact: Amelia Fox – afox@ppionline.org

Bledsoe for The Messenger: Gas Is a Better Option Than Coal on Our Path to Draw Down Emissions

Posted on by Alyssa Brown

By Paul Bledsoe

As the climate crisis worsens, the debate over emissions from natural gas is heating up, too. Unfortunately, both gas opponents and gas supporters have been cherry-picking the data, especially regarding the lifecycle emissions of gas, which under almost all circumstances are still lower than coal.

These contretemps are obscuring significant agreement between many gas suppliers, government regulators and climate campaigners about the need to dramatically reduce fugitive emissions of methane from the U.S. and global systems so gas can be as low-emitting as possible.

Switching from coal to natural gas in the U.S. has been responsible for three-fifths of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions reductions from 2005 to 2020. Across the U.S., major electric utilities continue to reduce coal. Duke Energy, for example, which operates in six states, including North Carolina, has retired more than 50 coal power plants and 7,000 megawatts of coal production since 2010.

Read more.

This story was originally published in The Messenger on August 12, 2023.

Bledsoe and Sykes for The Hill: Energy permitting is broken: New analytics can fix it

Posted on by Alyssa Brown

By Paul Bledsoe and Elan Sykes

The energy permitting reforms included in the recent bipartisan budget agreement represented modest progress — but they didn’t fix the problem. The main challenge, and the huge economic opportunity, is the sheer number of energy projects that must be permitted rapidly to save consumers money and limit emissions.

Thousands of these projects — wind power, solar, geothermal, powerlines, pipelines, carbon capture and many more — are pending reviews by federal agencies, electricity grid operators and state and local jurisdictions in every region. These permits cannot possibly be processed rapidly on a one-by-one basis, as the current system demands.

Fortunately, analytic and scoping technologies developed in the half-century since the passage of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) can help expedite the process. These advances include a far better understanding of geological, ecological and other scientific conditions as well as the capacity to process and display information through technologies like computationally intensive modeling and Geographical Information Systems programs. These technologies can provide regulators the capacity they need to more comprehensively approve large batches of similar projects together. Only such basic reforms will upgrade our national energy infrastructure quickly and cost-effectively.

Agencies can increasingly use these technologies to conduct programmatic reviews that study groups of projects across wide geographic or technological areas. These systematic reviews can proactively identify, study and map places with significant clean energy potential and recognize issues that may require mitigation measures.

Read more in The Hill.

Bledsoe for The Messenger: Sleepwalking Toward Climate Catastrophe

Posted on by dcadmin

By Paul Bledsoe

The last few weeks have brought unprecedented high temperatures in the U.S. and globally, including the four hottest days in a row worldwide ever in recorded history. More than 100 million Americans in 15 states were under extreme heat last week, with similar conditions expected for this week for most of the country, causing increased rates of asthma, heat stroke and a spike in emergency room visits. Already, new research finds more than 60,000 people died in Europe last summer due to extreme heat.

Scientists have been warning us of these climate impacts for decades — and that if left unchecked, emissions will cause feedback loops and tipping points in natural systems that will greatly accelerate global warming and its deadly impacts.

We are, in fact, far closer to disastrous, runaway climate change than our leaders are willing to admit. Collectively, we are sleepwalking toward catastrophe, willfully ignoring the signs of impending calamity much as monarchs and heads of state did in Europe in 1914 and 1939 on the precipice of the 20th century’s world wars.

Read more.

This story was originally published by The Messenger on July 25, 2023.

 

Building the World’s Most Advanced Energy Economy: A More Ambitious Approach to American Energy Permitting Reform

Posted on by dcadmin

Over the past two years, Congress has passed several much-needed laws and allocated over a trillion dollars to grow and update infrastructure and clean energy technology in the United States to combat climate change and lower consumer energy costs. However, these projects cannot become a reality under the current regulatory structure, which takes several years just to approve single projects.

Policymakers on both sides of the aisle have an interest in addressing this issue, and Congress recently enacted a first-pass set of permitting reforms as part of an agreement to raise the debt ceiling. While the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) supported this legislation, it doesn’t go far enough — and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy agree. Additional reform is needed to create ambitious changes required to fully modernize the outdated American regulatory process and unleash clean energy deployment that can outcompete the rest of the world.

Today, PPI released a new report titled “Building the World’s Most Advanced Energy Economy: A More Ambitious Approach to American Energy Permitting Reform.” Report authors Elan Sykes, Energy Policy Analyst, and Paul Bledsoe, Strategic Advisor, propose a fundamental change to the permitting process by utilizing new analytics, scoping, and mapping technologies that can provide federal agencies and regulators the tools they need to comprehensively approve large batches of projects together, instead of individually reviewing projects.

“The scale and pace of deployment needed for the clean energy transition must be met with an equally ambitious update to America’s environmental regulations. After half a century operating under restrictions designed without climate change in mind, growing ever more burdensome, we believe that Congress must aim higher than modest change around the edges,” said Elan Sykes, Energy Policy Analyst at PPI. “We must use modern technology to revamp our entire approach and ask federal agencies to review problems rather than projects, giving transparency to developers and communities alike and bringing countless economic and environmental benefits to households across the country.”

“Recent modest permitting reforms included in the June budget deal were important, but they will not bring about the transformative policy changes needed to quickly permit and build the thousands of energy projects currently pending approval,” said Paul Bledsoe, Strategic Advisor at PPI. “The reforms proposed in the report have the opportunity to rapidly unleash new projects, helping to drive economic growth and reduce energy costs which are key components of inflation. We look forward to working with both parties in Congress on this crucial economic and environmental opportunity.”

The report builds on existing policy recommendations, but goes further by emphasizing moving away from single-project reviews and individual permits to a more systematic approach of programmatic reviews and general permits. Providing clear and transparent rules for by-right approval is the only way to meet the scale of clean energy deployment at the pace the United States needs to compete globally and lower emissions.

Read and download the report here.

The Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) is a catalyst for policy innovation and political reform based in Washington, D.C., with offices in Brussels, Berlin and the United Kingdom. Its mission is to create radically pragmatic ideas for moving America beyond ideological and partisan deadlock. Learn more about PPI by visiting progressivepolicy.org.

Follow the Progressive Policy Institute.

Find an expert at PPI.

###

Media Contact: Amelia Fox, afox@ppionline.org

Building The World’s Most Advanced Energy Economy

Posted on by Alyssa Brown

INTRODUCTION AND EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

America needs to build bigger and cleaner. Facing economic and regulatory headwinds that affect our ability to grow the economy, channel investment into clean energy, and scale up the technologies needed to prevent climate change, we can no longer accept the burden of a regulatory framework designed for different problems and offering then-current solutions half a century ago that now penalizes and delays cleaner projects in the name of environmental protection. Reforming this system of environmental reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the many types of permits issued by federal agencies that require a prerequisite NEPA review is a necessary shift in economic and climate policy that remains unfinished.

In 2021 and 2022, Congress passed a trio of much-needed laws designed to grow and update U.S. infrastructure, clean energy technology, and research and development. Allocating over a trillion dollars in funding across a wide range of policy tools, the bills included tax credits, grants, and loans; a wide range of technologies, including not just technology-specific boosts like the hydrogen tax credits or grants for port modernization but also technology-neutral incentives for clean energy generation; and a wide distribution of benefits, both in geographic and socioeconomic terms.

Yet this funding cannot manifest as meaningful real-world construction under the current policy structure: According to data from the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council, the average time from formal start to final decision for projects under NEPA review averaged 4.3 years for transmission lines, 3.5 for natural gas pipelines, and 2.7 years for renewable energy generation projects. In order to maximize the public return on investment and build public confidence in this program, projects will need to move out of the theoretical realm and into the ground to start providing people with tangible results in the form of cheaper, cleaner power, bigger and better factories producing clean new cars and appliances, and also new facilities to produce the materials and components needed for all of this new technology.

Policymakers on both sides of the aisle have an interest in fixing this issue. A deal between Senator Joe Manchin and Majority Leader Senator Chuck Schumer in the fall of 2022 secured support from nearly all Senate Democrats for permitting reform modeled on existing programs for transportation and other infrastructure. PPI endorsed that effort and issued a major report with further policy recommendations at the time, but the measure fell short for lack of Republican support. This spring, in addition to several new Democratic proposals from President Biden, Senator Tom Carper, and Representatives Sean Casten and Mike Levin, Republicans introduced several iterations of their own reforms. As part of an agreement to raise the debt ceiling reached between President Biden and the Republican-majority House in May, Congress passed a series of fiscal measures and included parts of Rep. Garret Graves’ BUILDER Act as a first-pass set of permitting reforms. Specifically, these include:

• Streamlined interagency review process with a lead agency and coordinated timetables;

• 1-2 year “Shot clocks” to encourage faster environmental reviews;

• Sharing Categorical Exclusions across federal agencies;

• Minor changes to NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) changes: Programmatic NEPA reviews are authorized for use in subsequent documents for five years without further study, Page limits are imposed for NEPA documents (not including citations or appendices), clear standards for levels of review for different actions, narrow changes for the consideration of project alternatives and impacts, including considering the environmental benefits of a project, and authorizing a study on E-NEPA (improvements to the law’s administrative technology suite);

• Other changes: giving energy storage projects eligibility for the FAST-414 permit streamlining process, approving the Mountain Valley Pipeline, and authorizing a study on interregional transfer capacity for U.S. electric grids.

These reforms, which line up with PPI’s September 2022 recommendations, were negotiated under the severe pressure of default, and will unlock small but meaningful gains in permitting timelines and costs. They did not, however, include appropriately the ambitious changes required to fully modernize the sorely outdated American regulatory process and unleash clean energy deployment that can outcompete the rest of the world.

The imperative to deploy clean energy as quickly and cheaply as possible has not changed, but with Congress split and only part of the task complete, the political calculus has. Policymakers on both sides of the aisle have proposed crucial pieces of an even more ambitious reform package, and both need the other’s support to accomplish their own self-defined goals. While many progressive Democrats opposed reform last September, even their stance may be shifting as stalwart environmentalists like Bill McKibben, previously a dedicated activist focused on stringent supply-side fossil fuel restrictions, have come out in favor of shaking up the permitting system at least for the cleanest and most urgent projects for climate progress. The Republican-led House and Democratic-majority Senate will need to avoid polarizing themselves out of a deal that would bring substantial, meaningful wins to both their base constituencies on their own terms. Both sides must realize that a permitting and transmission deal will provide huge benefits to all major constituencies and stakeholders such that policy compromises will be rewarded politically rather than punished.

Agreement is not yet assured, but it is possible if a deal contains both broader reforms of permitting under NEPA than the debt ceiling deal, along with better coordination of compliance with other relevant environmental laws and appropriately scaled changes to the process of planning, siting, and paying for crucial electricity transmission. Both elements — NEPA reforms and transmission expansions — will be necessary for legislation to bring about a true renaissance in the U.S. energy economy that will provide unprecedented economic benefits to consumers, workers, and businesses while boosting U.S. competitiveness and reducing emissions.

Read the full report.

Sykes for Barron’s: There’s Still a Deal to Be Made on Permitting Reform

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

By Elan Sykes

When President Biden agreed to a debt limit deal with House Republicans in June, he greenlit many of their changes to the federal approval process for energy projects, typically referred to as permitting reform. Both parties came away with a win. Job well done, right?

Not quite, especially when it comes to the growth of clean energy in this country. Permitting reform isn’t just a Republican priority. Democrats passed significant new financing for the energy transition earlier in Biden’s presidency, but without further permitting reform that addresses their key issues, it won’t achieve nearly enough. And Republicans who may have taken a victory lap on the debt-limit deal have permitting goals to accomplish, too. A better deal could still be had. 

Keep reading in Barron’s.

Bledsoe for The Messenger: A Melting Arctic Will Bring Climate Disaster Without Urgent Action

Posted on by dcadmin

By Paul Bledsoe

President Joe Biden met with both U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and then King Charles this week to discuss climate change, and action on the Arctic should have been at the top of the agenda since the melting of Arctic sea ice is rapidly destabilizing the climate more powerfully than any other immediate cause.

As the Arctic’s reflective sea ice continues to melt, more and more heat is absorbed by the darker ocean underneath, disrupting the world’s weather and inflicting punishing and hugely expensive climate impacts in the U.S., U.K. and around the globe.

The loss of sea ice also is rearranging geopolitical power in very dangerous ways for the West, as Russia and China cooperate on newly opened Arctic sea lanes and plot to jointly exploit oil, gas and other minerals made more accessible as the ice disappears.

But there is still a choice: temporary riches from oil and gas for a few, or planetary safety for all.  This should be an easy call.  But it doesn’t seem to be.

Read more.

This story was originally published by The Messenger on July 11, 2023.

Bledsoe and Gresser for The Messenger: A Trade-Based Climate Policy Can Cut Emissions Globally

Posted on by dcadmin

By Paul Bledsoe and Ed Gresser

The recent reopening of diplomatic dialogue by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chinese leaders highlighted the enormous importance of climate change action by the world’s two largest greenhouse gas emitters. But it did not yield immediate progress on China’s huge annual carbon emissions.

In contrast, the U.S., European Union and their G7 allies are taking historic actions to reduce greenhouse emissions. America’s effort includes hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies for domestic private-sector investments in clean energy, intended to reduce emissions by 50% or more by 2030 and reach “net-zero” emissions before mid-century.

Action by the G7, however, isn’t nearly enough. Total global emissions continue to grow, setting another record last year. The reason is emissions growth from large middle-income countries. China produces nearly one-third of the world’s 36 billion tons of annual carbon dioxide emissions, more than all developed countries combined, while Russia, India, Brazil and Indonesia add 5.6 billion tons. Emissions from all these countries are still rising.

As emissions and global temperatures increase, hugely expensive and deadly climate impacts are multiplying, from last year’s floods in Pakistan to this year’s Canadian wildfires and many others in every region of the world. These are clear warnings of a future of far more devastating climate disasters unless global emissions begin falling very soon.

Read more.

This story was originally published in The Messenger on July 3, 2023.

Alliance for Clean Trade: Creating a New Climate and Trade Alliance Between the U.S., EU, and Allies

Posted on by Alyssa Brown

The United States and the European Union have recently implemented ambitious domestic greenhouse gas reduction programs. But reducing global emissions will not be possible unless China and other middle-income emitting countries cut their emissions. And the different approaches the EU and U.S. have taken create a risk of policy and trade conflicts that divert both from the larger goal of limiting world emissions.

Today, the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) released a new report titled, “Alliance for Clean Trade: A Framework Proposal for a New Climate and Trade Alliance Between the U.S., EU, and Allies” outlining a new low-emissions trade deal that would help the United States, European Union, and their allies harmonize approaches to transition to clean energy and incentivize China and other nations to reduce emissions.

Report authors Paul Bledsoe, Strategic Advisor at PPI and a former Clinton White House climate official, and Ed Gresser, Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets and former Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Trade Policy and Economics, lay out a policy framework where the U.S., EU, and other G7 countries set emissions standards for high-carbon industries, and impose a fee applying to both local production and imported goods with high emissions rates. This trade agreement would help countries meet their emissions goals, avoid imposing trade penalties on each other, and give China and other large emitting, middle-income countries incentives to follow suit.

“The Alliance for Clean Trade (ACT) proposes that the U.S. and our G7 allies ban together to create powerful trade incentives for China and other nations to cut their emissions, so global emissions can fall and we can prevent the worst of climate change impacts,” said Paul Bledsoe. “Without new economic incentives to reduce emissions, our world will see dangerous climate impacts and rising household costs that will soon swamp our ability to adapt and protect public safety at home and around the world. Our framework helps provide a pragmatic, yet ambitious way forward, while also complying with World Trade Organization rules.”

“The world has just had a shining example of U.S.-Europe-Asian collaboration to develop new technologies and products needed to meet a worldwide threat in the case of the COVID-19 vaccines. We need a similar collaborative effort to meet the challenge of climate change, and to induce the large middle-income economies that are the source of new net emissions to become more efficient,” said Ed Gresser. “This paper is an effort to outline such a program, through trade incentives based on common charges for over-production of carbon in the highest-emissions industrial sectors.”

The framework seeks to address three major problems with current policies and other proposals:

  • The framework creates powerful economic incentives for China and other large emitting, middle-income countries to cut emissions since they now export to the U.S., EU and other allied countries without penalty for higher CO2 emissions.
  • The framework also harmonizes increasingly disparate climate policies among US, EU and G7 allies for trade purposes, using low emissions intensity by sector as the key metric.
  • The framework complies with World Trade Organization principles of national treatment and non-discrimination, avoiding the risk that proposals currently being considered in the U.S. Congress might violate U.S. trade obligations, but without requiring widespread U.S. carbon pricing.

 

Read and download the report here:

The Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) is a catalyst for policy innovation and political reform based in Washington, D.C., with offices in Brussels, Berlin and the United Kingdom. Its mission is to create radically pragmatic ideas for moving America beyond ideological and partisan deadlock. Learn more about PPI by visiting progressivepolicy.org.

Follow the Progressive Policy Institute.

Find an expert at PPI.

###

Media Contact: Amelia Fox, afox@ppionline.org

Alliance for Clean Trade: A Framework Proposal for a New Climate and Trade Alliance Between the U.S., EU, and Allies

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

ALLIANCE FOR CLEAN TRADE

A low-emissions trade deal to help the United States, the European Union, and their allies harmonize approaches to the clean energy transition and incentivize China and other nations to reduce emissions.

 

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

After many years of discord and false starts, the United States, the European Union, and most other major developed economies are implementing ambitious domestic greenhouse gas emissions reduction programs. U.S. and EU emissions, respectively the world’s secondlargest and third-largest flows of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, are likely to continue to fall sharply as a result.

But their efforts won’t be enough. To avert a disastrous rise in global temperatures, the larger, necessary goal is to reduce global emissions. For this, however, China — whose emissions are now greater annually than the U.S., EU, and all other developed countries combined — must reduce its emissions, and so must other major middle-income emitting countries. So far, that isn’t happening.

Here’s a program that can help: An Alliance for Clean Trade (ACT) that minimizes climate and trade policy conflict among low-emissions economies including the U.S. and EU, accelerates the reduction of emissions in some of their major industrial sectors, and creates strong economic incentives for others, including eventually China, to reduce their own emissions.

The core idea is for the U.S. and EU, joined by other G7 countries and eventually OECD nations, to set emissions standards for high-carbon industries, and impose a fee applying to both local production and imported goods with emissions rates above an agreed emissions intensity standard. This would help them meet their emissions goals, avoid counterproductive rivalries and imposition of trade penalties on one another, and give China and large emitting, middle-income countries incentives to do the same.

READ THE FULL REPORT

PPI Urges Congress to Adopt Permitting Reforms Included In Debt Ceiling Agreement

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Paul Bledsoe, Strategic Advisor at the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI), released the following response in reaction to the permitting reforms included in the reported agreement-in-principle to raise the debt ceiling.

“PPI supports the permitting reforms included in the budget agreement, including tighter deadlines for environmental impact statements, designation of lead agencies, and other improvements we recommended in PPI’s major report on permitting reforms last fall. We therefore urge adoption of these reforms by Congress.

“But far more extensive reforms will be needed to expedite the thousands of new energy projects that are pending approval, and to reduce both consumer costs and emissions in the long-term. These reforms include provisions to more quickly and cost-effectively build large electric power lines, natural gas and other pipelines, wind and solar projects, advanced nuclear power, electricity storage, and many other energy technologies. We look forward to working with Congress and the Administration to pass these additional and urgently needed reforms into law.”

The Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) is a catalyst for policy innovation and political reform based in Washington, D.C. Its mission is to create radically pragmatic ideas for moving America beyond ideological and partisan deadlock. Learn more about PPI by visiting progressivepolicy.org.

Follow the Progressive Policy Institute.

Find an expert at PPI.

###

Media Contact: Amelia Fox – afox@ppionline.org

PPI Applauds New Democrat Coalition’s Bipartisan Permitting Reform Priorities

Posted on by Alyssa Brown

Elan Sykes, Energy Policy Analyst at the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI), released the following response in reaction to the New Democrat Coalition’s bipartisan permitting reform proposal.

“Combatting the climate crisis requires the ability to swiftly build and deploy massive new infrastructure and technology, without a thicket of federal and state regulations that slow the transition and in many cases even penalize cleaner technologies relative to fossil fuels. The Progressive Policy Institute has long advocated for updates to the existing regulatory framework to better reflect the impact and benefits of clean energy technologies for the climate and the U.S. economy.

“PPI supports the New Democrat Coalition’s proposal, which builds on successful, existing reforms while highlighting the need for ambitious modernization of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and specific new reforms for electricity transmission to place it on par with rules for natural gas. In September, PPI released policy recommendations for permitting reform legislation and is pleased to see those recommendations included in the New Democrat Coaliton’s plan.

“Securing permitting reforms will not only help address climate change with the proper urgency, but it will also lower household energy costs for American families in a time of concerning inflation. Congress must take effective, bipartisan action to break through this outdated, bureaucratic red tape and let America build.”

The Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) is a catalyst for policy innovation and political reform based in Washington, D.C. Its mission is to create radically pragmatic ideas for moving America beyond ideological and partisan deadlock. Learn more about PPI by visiting progressivepolicy.org.

Follow the Progressive Policy Institute.

###

Media Contact: Amelia Fox – afox@ppionline.org

La Sombrita: Dysfunctional Urban Governance in our Changing Climate

Posted on by Alyssa Brown

Last week, the Los Angeles Department of Transportation held a press conference and ribbon-cutting ceremony to launch its latest facility: a bus shade and lamp roughly the size of a streetside parking sign called “La Sombrita.” Pictures displaying the device showed an internet eager for Sombrita content and its limited ambitions (see the viral chatter on Twitter and TikTok), as it provides little or no shade at certain times of day and the lamp is pointed so it doesn’t even illuminate its surroundings:

 

 

The Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT) and Kounkuey Design Initiative (KDI), the nonprofit behind La Sombrita’s design, explicitly acknowledge that the structure was specifically designed for situations where permitting delays, agency conflicts, or narrow sidewalks prevent the installation of street trees or traditional bus shelters with a roof and seating. Indeed, highlighting these constraints may have been the most valuable contribution that La Sombrita makes to the Los Angeles bus system, because these limitations are self-imposed, or at the very least, stem from a narrow political vision that must be widened for cities to govern effectively through coming challenges.

Despite the humorous tone of the discussion — and La Sombrita certainly deserves the jokes at its expense — the issues of shade, nighttime lighting, and general infrastructure needs for pedestrians and bus users are all quite serious business. Bus riders — often low-income workers using current American bus systems as a mode of last resort — are forced to wait for infrequent service under the scorching sun with nowhere to sit, and without coverage from street trees like those common in richer neighborhoods. The structure’s lamp was included to meet an identified need for better lighting to help provide security for women against the risk of gendered violence. Narrow sidewalks and poor maintenance hurt all users, but they make any further obstruction especially difficult for people with mobility disabilities to pass by. And for the public and planet at large, infrastructure that improves low-emissions transportation methods like buses and walking will be increasingly important to us all as climate change continues to raise temperatures and reduce cloud cover in a brutal feedback cycle.

Just as the clean energy transition requires updating old federal environmental regulations holding back the deployment of renewables, transmission, and mass transit, cities working to mitigate and adapt to climate change while growing and maintaining their vibrancy through the social and workplaces transitions that follow the COVID pandemic must reform these local regulatory thickets holding back city governments like LADOT from building out effective networks of infrastructure for neglected modes of low-carbon transportation. The problem is not limited to Los Angeles either, as the decade-long slog to build bus lanes in San Francisco and a million-dollar bus stop in Arlington, Virginia, demonstrate.

Cities around the world have shown that climate-friendly urban infrastructure projects can be delivered quickly and at low cost. Consider the COVID pop-up bike lanes of Paris, which increased ridership by 60% in just two years, or the world-class bus rapid transit network that Mexico City built in the time it took San Francisco to build just one lane, or Vienna’s Cool Streets program that provide shade and water features at places for city residents to cool off in the fresh air on select streets during hotter and hotter summers.

Adopting programs like these in the U.S. will never succeed if every program is launched as an expensive pilot project forced to jump through the hoops of countless agencies’ rules and forced through tortuous process requirements. U.S. cities aiming for ambitious progress on climate, mobility, and equity should be applauded for the results they achieve rather than the ideals they profess in service of overpriced half-measures. A comprehensive and forward-looking mode of urban governance does not require spending lavish sums on vanity projects but should instead focus on:

 

  • Enabling real infrastructure deployment by streamlining the permitting process, consolidating and coordinating across separate agencies, and empowering agencies to buy and implement off-the-shelf components faster and cheaper.
  • Ending land-use restrictions on urban density including zoning, setbacks, and parking requirements that limit shade from buildings and disperse destinations to inhibit walking and bus transport.
  • Treating pedestrian and bus infrastructure investment on par with other transport modes.
  • Encouraging wider adoption of solar shading and cooling facilities in hot and warming cities.

 

If America’s cities get out of their own way with unnecessary requirements and limitations to embrace a vision of livable and vibrant cities, the next $200,000 spent on urban infrastructure will go much further than La Sombrita.