Democrats see ‘abundance' as a path to renewed prosperity

San Francisco Chronicle​

08-05-2025

Heeding the 'abundance' message of 'build more, faster' that many Democrats are embracing as their way back to power, moderate Central Valley Democratic Rep. Josh Harder, D-Stockton, assembled a new bipartisan coalition of House members Thursday united by its desire to cut federal red tape to make housing and infrastructure projects quicker to build.
Calling themselves the Build America caucus, the group of 30 House members, including 10 Republicans, pledged to 'build more affordable housing, speed up our infrastructure projects and lower energy prices, all of this while bringing costs down for people,' said Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet, D-MIchigan.
'What you're witnessing here,' Harder said Thursday outside the Capitol with other members of the caucus, 'is a unicorn event … a bipartisan caucus coming together to actually solve problems. Feels like it doesn't happen enough in Washington.'
Caucuses, like-minded members united by a cause, are a dime-a-dozen in Washington, span the alphabet from the American Seafood Caucus to the Venezuela Democracy Caucus and often do little. But Harder and other members of the new fledgling group said this would be different given renewed pressures on lawmakers, particularly Democrats, to show that they could 'get stuff done' after their November shellacking.
That philosophy has gained momentum in recent months after the publication of the best-selling book 'Abundance,' by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson. Their prescription for fellow liberals: Show you can build something. Housing, services for the homeless, high-speed rail: These are all things Democrats have failed to deliver, nowhere more spectacularly than California, which they write, is a 'land of wonders.'
'Liberals should be able to say, Vote for us and we will govern the country the way we govern California,' they wrote. 'Instead, conservatives are able to say, 'Vote for them and they will govern the country the way they govern California'!'
Harder, who r epresents a San Joaquin Valley district that supported Donald Trump, said the book has 'really given voice to a sense of frustration, combining anger from different sectors under a common theme. This has been a problem percolating for a long time, and it's very bipartisan. Voters in my district are frustrated by both Democratic and Republican efforts to move forward on projects.'
Over the past several years, California lawmakers have tried to loosen restrictions on state regulations in hopes of spurring more housing construction. Gov. Gavin Newsom boasts that he has signed 42 bills altering the California Environmental Quality Act, colloquially known as CEQA, the state's landmark environmental law. Earlier this year, Oakland Assembly Member Buffy Wicks introduced legislation that would exempt most infill housing from the environmental reviews required under CEQA.
But Harder notes that federal bottlenecks remain. He said he voted for the bipartisan infrastructure law four years ago 'with real hope that that would unleash a construction and innovation engine across California, and that really hasn't materialized. I'm still waiting for shovels to be put in the dirt for a bridge (the Seventh Street Bridge in Modesto) that I cited in my vote for the bipartisan infrastructure law four years ago. That bridge may not be built for another 10 years.'
About 60 percent of all Inflation Reduction Act-related clean economy projects — and 85 percent of total private-sector investments — in the first two years after the 2022 law passed went to Republican congressional districts, even though no Republican member of Congress voted for the IRA, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan business group E2.
Harder said the fact that California is not getting its fair share of IRA money should be 'an embarrassment.'
'We consider ourselves one of the most pro-climate states in the nation. We're not getting those projects. They're going to Texas or Florida or Arizona,' Harder said. 'They're not coming to California because you can't get stuff built and all those are federal projects that have state requirements as well as federal requirements.'
Harder said 'a lot of the bottlenecks around things like building bridges and roads are more federal than they are state. So if we're successful here, ultimately, people will see more good things being built in their community, be that the pothole across the street, be that the bridge they drive over to get to work, the house that needs to be renovated, or whatever else it is.'
But other roadblocks exist. Harder doubts the caucus will make much progress while Congress is focused on the GOP-written tax bill that takes center stage this month.
But if the Republican-dominated House bristled earlier this year at approving disaster aid for victims of the Los Angeles wildfires, why would lawmakers pass legislation that might help California, which is regularly mocked by President Trump.
Harder hopes Republican members of the caucus can help it succeed in an era when Republicans control Congress. The group includes Republicans with some seniority who might have a better connection to House leadership, including Rep. Gus Bilirakis, who chairs an Energy and Commerce Committee subcommittee; Rep. Michael McCaul, R-TX, who is Chairman Emeritus of the House Committee on Homeland Security, and Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Washington and Rep. David Valadao, R-Hanford, both members of the powerful House Appropriations Committee.
Harder said permitting reform, which the caucus would focus on, is generally one of the few areas of bipartisan agreement in Washington. Rep. Chuck Edwards, R-N.C., said Thursday that 'Delays stretch for years before a single shovel often hits the ground.'
'This stagnation isn't fate. It's the product of policy, and it can be fixed. We believe in unleashing energy through smarter permitting and making homeownership more accessible by empowering builders and in rebuilding our infrastructure by streamlining processes, not burying them in paperwork.'
Harder said it is incumbent on California to show how a state with a Democratic supermajority in the Legislature and the party holding every statewide office can build things quickly.
'California should be a shining beacon on a hill of how great life looks like when you vote for Democrats in a super majority over and over again, and frankly, it doesn't. California is a cautionary tale to many voters across the country,' Harder said.
Some progressive Democrats have pushed back on the abundance movement as a giveaway to corporate America and have worried that cutting red tape could mean circumventing important environmental protections.
Rep. Jim Himes, D-Connecticut, acknowledged that this bi-partisan cooperation will be hard. Both parties will need to challenge their own supporters.
'In my party, people are going to need to realize that a lot of the regulations that we put in place for all the right reasons, to preserve the environment, to make sure that communities had a voice, that those regulations may have worked in the 1900s but they don't work in the 21st century,' Himes said. 'My Republican colleagues are going to need to realize that innovation and progress involves the government as a partner. From semiconductors to the internet, that has been the history of American innovation.'