Press
Johnson for Liberal Currents: The Case for Abolishing the National Environmental Policy Act
09.06.2022
In November 2006, Superior Court Judge Peter Busch upheld a preliminary injunction against the city of San Francisco, preventing them from moving forward with their plan to build new bike lanes and bike infrastructure. Busch ruled that the city hadn’t properly followed the environmental review process mandated by the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA. In November 2008, San Francisco was finally finished with the review. All it took was more than 2.5 years, 1,353 pages and more than $1 million in direct costs. This allowed San Francisco the chance at a public hearing in January of the next year, after which the bureaucratic process could either continue or face more delays.
If you think a two year, million dollar, 1,000+ page environmental report simply to build new bike lanes in an already developed city seems absurd, you’re not alone. Americans are more concerned than ever about addressing climate change, but one of America’s foundational environmental laws is functionally preventing us from doing so. The National Environmental Policy Act—and its state level equivalents such as CEQA—make it far too difficult to take major actions that would help lower carbon emissions. NEPA is a fundamentally broken piece of legislation and should be entirely repealed.
Read the full piece in Liberal Currents.
