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Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Democrats should debate messaging less (and policy more)
In the months since Kamala Harris's defeat, Democrats have debated the party's political and policy mistakes. This argument has centered in part on (Vox co-founder) Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson's bestselling book, Abundance. Those political columnists argue that Democrats have failed to deliver material plenty: Blue states don't provide their residents with adequate housing, and federal Democrats have struggled to build anything on time and budget. Klein and Thompson attribute these failures partly to flawed zoning restrictions and environmental review laws. In making this case, they echoed the analysis of many other commentators, policy wonks, and activist groups, while also lending their ideology tendency a name: abundance liberalism. Some on the left distrust this movement, seeing it as a scheme for reducing progressive influence over the Democratic Party — and workers' power in the American economy. In this view, Democrats must choose between pursuing abundance reforms and 'populist' ones. The party can either take on red tape or corporate greed. A new poll from Demand Progress, a progressive nonprofit, suggests that the party should opt for the latter. The survey presented voters with a hypothetical Democratic candidate who argues that America's 'big problem is 'bottlenecks' that make it harder to produce housing, expand energy production, or build new roads and bridges.' The candidate goes on to note, 'Frequently these bottlenecks take the form of well-intended regulations meant to give people a voice or to protect the environment — but these regulations are exploited by organized interest groups and community groups to slow things down.' It then presented an alternative Democrat who contends that 'The big problem is that big corporations have way too much power over our economy and our government.' By a 42.8 to 29.2 percent margin, voters preferred the populist Democrat. This is unsurprising on a couple levels. First, advocacy organizations rarely release polls that show voters disagreeing with their views. Demand Progress's mission is to 'fight corporate power' and 'break up monopolies.' It did not set out to disinterestedly gauge public opinion, but to advance a factional project. And this is reflected in the survey's wording. The poll embeds the mention of a trade-off in its 'abundance' message (signaling that the candidate would give people less 'voice' and the environment, less protection) but not in its anti-corporate one. Had the survey's hypothetical populist promised to fight 'well-intentioned, pro-business policies meant to create jobs and spur innovation,' their message might have fared less well. This said, I think it's almost certainly true that populist rhetoric is more politically resonant than technocratic arguments about supply-side 'bottlenecks.' According to the Democratic data firm Blue Rose Research, Harris's best testing ad in 2024 included a pledge to 'crack down' on 'price gougers' and 'landlords who are charging too much.' But that doesn't have much bearing on whether Democrats should embrace abundance reforms for two reasons. First, the political case for those reforms rests on their material benefits, not their rhetorical appeal. And second, Democrats don't actually need to choose between pursuing abundance liberalism and populism — if by 'populism,' one means a politics focused on redistributing wealth and power from the few to the many. The Demand Progress poll aims to refute an argument that Abundance does not make. Klein and Thompson do not claim that politicians who promise to combat regulatory 'bottlenecks' will outperform those who vow to fight 'corporations.' And I have not seen any other advocate of zoning liberalization or permitting reform say anything like that. Rather, the political case for those policies primarily concerns their real-world consequences, rather than their oratorical verve. The starting point for that case is a diagnosis of the Democratic Party's governance failures. Klein and Thompson spotlight several: Big blue states suffer from perennial housing shortages and exceptionally high homelessness rates. In 2023, the five states with the highest rates of homelessness — California, Hawaii, New York, Oregon, and Washington — were all governed by Democrats. Democrat-run states and cities also struggle to build public infrastructure on time and budget. Seventeen years ago, California allocated $33 billion to a high-speed rail system. It still has not opened a single line. San Francisco has struggled to build a single public toilet for less than $1.7 million. New York City's transit construction costs are the highest in the world. At the federal level, similar difficulties have plagued Democrats' infrastructural ambitions. For example, the Biden administration invested $7.5 billion into electric vehicle charging stations in 2021. Analysts expected that funding to yield 5,000 stations. Four years later, it had built only 58. Klein and Thompson attribute these results partly to zoning restrictions and environmental review laws. The former prohibit the construction of apartments on roughly 70 percent of America's residential land, while the latter empower well-heeled interests to obstruct infrastructure projects through lawsuits. Abundance argues that this is a political problem for Democrats in at least three ways: First, the party's conspicuous failure to contain the cost-of-living in New York and California undermines its reputation for economic governance nationally. Second, the public sector's inability to build anything efficiently abets conservative narratives about the follies of big government. Third, and most concretely, Americans are responding to high housing costs in blue states by moving to red ones — a migration pattern that's about to make it much harder for Democrats to win the Electoral College. After the 2030 census, electoral votes will be reapportioned based on population shifts. If current trends persist, California, Illinois, and New York will lose Electoral College votes while Florida and Texas gain them. As a result, a Democrat could win every blue state in 2032 — along with Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — and still lose the presidency. Klein and Thompson therefore reason that enacting their proposed reforms will aid Democrats politically by improving the party's reputation for economic management, boosting confidence in the public sector's efficacy, and increasing blue states' populations (and thus, their representation in Congress and the Electoral College). Therefore, you can't refute the political argument for 'abundance' policies with a messaging poll. Rather, to do so, you need to show 1) that 'abundance' reforms will not actually make housing, energy, and infrastructure more plentiful, or 2) that making those goods more plentiful won't actually increase support for the Democratic Party, or 3) that people will keep moving away from blue states and toward red ones, even if the former start building more housing. For the record, I think the substantive case for the abundance agenda is stronger than the political one. I'm confident that legalizing the construction of apartment buildings in inner-ring suburbs will increase the supply of housing. I'm less sure that doing so will win the Democratic Party votes. A lot of Americans are homeowners who don't want tall buildings (and/or, lots of nonaffluent people) in their municipalities. But that isn't the argument that Demand Progress is making. The Demand Progress survey is premised on the notion that Democrats must choose between an 'abundance' agenda and a 'populist' one. But this is mostly false. There is no inherent tension between vigorously enforcing antitrust laws and relaxing restrictions on multifamily housing construction. To the contrary, there's arguably a philosophical link between those two endeavors: Both entail promoting greater competition, so as to erode the pricing power of property holders. (When zoning laws preempt the construction of apartment buildings, renters have fewer options to choose from. That reduces competition between landlords, and enables them to charge higher prices.) More fundamentally, abundance liberalism is in direct conflict with traditional environmentalism. More broadly, abundance is compatible with increasing working people's living standards and economic power. The more housing that a city builds, the more property taxes that it can collect — and thus, the more social welfare benefits it can provide to ordinary people. And this basic principle applies more generally: If you increase economic growth through regulatory reforms, then you'll have more wealth to redistribute, whether through union contracts or the welfare state. This isn't to say that there are no tradeoffs between 'abundance' reforms and economic progressivism, as some understand that ideology. For example, individual labor unions sometimes support restricting the supply of socially useful goods — such as housing or hotels — for self-interested reasons. Some populists might counsel reflexive deference to the demands of such unions. Abundance liberals generally would not. But policies that make a tiny segment of workers better off — at the expense of a much larger group of working people — are not pro-labor in the best sense of that term. More fundamentally, abundance liberalism is in direct conflict with traditional environmentalism. The first aims to make it easier to build green infrastructure, even at the cost of making it harder to obstruct fossil fuel extraction. Many environmental organizations have the opposite priority. Yet fighting to limit America's supply of oil and gas — even if this means making infrastructure more expensive and scarce — is not an especially populist cause, even if one deems it a worthy one. Ultimately, abundance liberalism is less about how Democrats should message than about how they should govern. It's useful to know whether a particular analysis of the party's governance failures is politically appealing. But it's more important to know whether that analysis is accurate. Democrats can rail against corporate malfeasance on the campaign trail, no matter what positions they take on zoning or permitting. If they operate from a false understanding of why blue states struggle to build adequate housing and infrastructure, however, they will fail working people. Critics of abundance liberalism should therefore focus on its substance. To their credit, many progressive skeptics have done this. I think their arguments are unconvincing (and plan to address them in the future). But they at least clarify the terms of the intra-left debate over abundance. Demand Progress's poll, by contrast, only obscures them.
Vox
3 days ago
- Politics
- Vox
Democrats should debate messaging less (and policy more)
is a senior correspondent at Vox. He covers a wide range of political and policy issues with a special focus on questions that internally divide the American left and right. Before coming to Vox in 2024, he wrote a column on politics and economics for New York Magazine. In the months since Kamala Harris's defeat, Democrats have debated the party's political and policy mistakes. This argument has centered in part on (Vox co-founder) Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson's bestselling book, Abundance. Those political columnists argue that Democrats have failed to deliver material plenty: Blue states don't provide their residents with adequate housing, and federal Democrats have struggled to build anything on time and budget. Klein and Thompson attribute these failures partly to flawed zoning restrictions and environmental review laws. In making this case, they echoed the analysis of many other commentators, policy wonks, and activist groups, while also lending their ideology tendency a name: abundance liberalism. Some on the left distrust this movement, seeing it as a scheme for reducing progressive influence over the Democratic Party — and workers' power in the American economy. In this view, Democrats must choose between pursuing abundance reforms and 'populist' ones. The party can either take on red tape or corporate greed. A new poll from Demand Progress, a progressive nonprofit, suggests that the party should opt for the latter. The survey presented voters with a hypothetical Democratic candidate who argues that America's 'big problem is 'bottlenecks' that make it harder to produce housing, expand energy production, or build new roads and bridges.' The candidate goes on to note, 'Frequently these bottlenecks take the form of well-intended regulations meant to give people a voice or to protect the environment — but these regulations are exploited by organized interest groups and community groups to slow things down.' The Rebuild The lessons liberals should take away from their election defeat — and a closer look at where they should go next. From senior correspondent Eric Levitz. Email (required) Sign Up By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. It then presented an alternative Democrat who contends that 'The big problem is that big corporations have way too much power over our economy and our government.' By a 42.8 to 29.2 percent margin, voters preferred the populist Democrat. This is unsurprising on a couple levels. First, advocacy organizations rarely release polls that show voters disagreeing with their views. Demand Progress's mission is to 'fight corporate power' and 'break up monopolies.' It did not set out to disinterestedly gauge public opinion, but to advance a factional project. And this is reflected in the survey's wording. The poll embeds the mention of a trade-off in its 'abundance' message (signaling that the candidate would give people less 'voice' and the environment, less protection) but not in its anti-corporate one. Had the survey's hypothetical populist promised to fight 'well-intentioned, pro-business policies meant to create jobs and spur innovation,' their message might have fared less well. This said, I think it's almost certainly true that populist rhetoric is more politically resonant than technocratic arguments about supply-side 'bottlenecks.' According to the Democratic data firm Blue Rose Research, Harris's best testing ad in 2024 included a pledge to 'crack down' on 'price gougers' and 'landlords who are charging too much.' But that doesn't have much bearing on whether Democrats should embrace abundance reforms for two reasons. First, the political case for those reforms rests on their material benefits, not their rhetorical appeal. And second, Democrats don't actually need to choose between pursuing abundance liberalism and populism — if by 'populism,' one means a politics focused on redistributing wealth and power from the few to the many. The political case for 'abundance' policies is rooted in their real world effects, not their rhetorical appeal The Demand Progress poll aims to refute an argument that Abundance does not make. Klein and Thompson do not claim that politicians who promise to combat regulatory 'bottlenecks' will outperform those who vow to fight 'corporations.' And I have not seen any other advocate of zoning liberalization or permitting reform say anything like that. Rather, the political case for those policies primarily concerns their real-world consequences, rather than their oratorical verve. The starting point for that case is a diagnosis of the Democratic Party's governance failures. Klein and Thompson spotlight several: Big blue states suffer from perennial housing shortages and exceptionally high homelessness rates . In 2023, the five states with the highest rates of homelessness — California, Hawaii, New York, Oregon, and Washington — were all governed by Democrats. At the federal level, similar difficulties have plagued Democrats' infrastructural ambitions. For example, the Biden administration invested $7.5 billion into electric vehicle charging stations in 2021. Analysts expected that funding to yield 5,000 stations. Four years later, it had built only 58 Klein and Thompson attribute these results partly to zoning restrictions and environmental review laws. The former prohibit the construction of apartments on roughly 70 percent of America's residential land, while the latter empower well-heeled interests to obstruct infrastructure projects through lawsuits. Abundance argues that this is a political problem for Democrats in at least three ways: First, the party's conspicuous failure to contain the cost-of-living in New York and California undermines its reputation for economic governance nationally. Second, the public sector's inability to build anything efficiently abets conservative narratives about the follies of big government. Third, and most concretely, Americans are responding to high housing costs in blue states by moving to red ones — a migration pattern that's about to make it much harder for Democrats to win the Electoral College. After the 2030 census, electoral votes will be reapportioned based on population shifts. If current trends persist, California, Illinois, and New York will lose Electoral College votes while Florida and Texas gain them. As a result, a Democrat could win every blue state in 2032 — along with Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — and still lose the presidency. Klein and Thompson therefore reason that enacting their proposed reforms will aid Democrats politically by improving the party's reputation for economic management, boosting confidence in the public sector's efficacy, and increasing blue states' populations (and thus, their representation in Congress and the Electoral College). Therefore, you can't refute the political argument for 'abundance' policies with a messaging poll. Rather, to do so, you need to show 1) that 'abundance' reforms will not actually make housing, energy, and infrastructure more plentiful, or 2) that making those goods more plentiful won't actually increase support for the Democratic Party, or 3) that people will keep moving away from blue states and toward red ones, even if the former start building more housing. For the record, I think the substantive case for the abundance agenda is stronger than the political one. I'm confident that legalizing the construction of apartment buildings in inner-ring suburbs will increase the supply of housing. I'm less sure that doing so will win the Democratic Party votes. A lot of Americans are homeowners who don't want tall buildings (and/or, lots of nonaffluent people) in their municipalities. But that isn't the argument that Demand Progress is making. There is no actual trade-off between soaking the rich and making it easier to build stuff The Demand Progress survey is premised on the notion that Democrats must choose between an 'abundance' agenda and a 'populist' one. But this is mostly false. There is no inherent tension between vigorously enforcing antitrust laws and relaxing restrictions on multifamily housing construction. To the contrary, there's arguably a philosophical link between those two endeavors: Both entail promoting greater competition, so as to erode the pricing power of property holders. (When zoning laws preempt the construction of apartment buildings, renters have fewer options to choose from. That reduces competition between landlords, and enables them to charge higher prices.) More fundamentally, abundance liberalism is in direct conflict with traditional environmentalism. More broadly, abundance is compatible with increasing working people's living standards and economic power. The more housing that a city builds, the more property taxes that it can collect — and thus, the more social welfare benefits it can provide to ordinary people. And this basic principle applies more generally: If you increase economic growth through regulatory reforms, then you'll have more wealth to redistribute, whether through union contracts or the welfare state. This isn't to say that there are no tradeoffs between 'abundance' reforms and economic progressivism, as some understand that ideology. For example, individual labor unions sometimes support restricting the supply of socially useful goods — such as housing or hotels — for self-interested reasons. Some populists might counsel reflexive deference to the demands of such unions. Abundance liberals generally would not. But policies that make a tiny segment of workers better off — at the expense of a much larger group of working people — are not pro-labor in the best sense of that term. More fundamentally, abundance liberalism is in direct conflict with traditional environmentalism. The first aims to make it easier to build green infrastructure, even at the cost of making it harder to obstruct fossil fuel extraction. Many environmental organizations have the opposite priority. Yet fighting to limit America's supply of oil and gas — even if this means making infrastructure more expensive and scarce — is not an especially populist cause, even if one deems it a worthy one. The 'abundance' debate is primarily about policy, not politics Ultimately, abundance liberalism is less about how Democrats should message than about how they should govern. It's useful to know whether a particular analysis of the party's governance failures is politically appealing. But it's more important to know whether that analysis is accurate. Democrats can rail against corporate malfeasance on the campaign trail, no matter what positions they take on zoning or permitting. If they operate from a false understanding of why blue states struggle to build adequate housing and infrastructure, however, they will fail working people. Critics of abundance liberalism should therefore focus on its substance. To their credit, many progressive skeptics have done this. I think their arguments are unconvincing (and plan to address them in the future). But they at least clarify the terms of the intra-left debate over abundance. Demand Progress's poll, by contrast, only obscures them.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
The overhaul of L.A. County government begins now
In November, Los Angeles County voters approved Measure G, which promised to transform county governance. The process that will implement its reforms begins now with the creation of the Governance Reform Task Force, and L.A. County leaders, residents and media need to be engaged because, as the saying goes, 'The devil is in the details.' For too long, the county has underserved the people of Los Angeles. With nearly 10 million residents, our county is more populous than 40 U.S. states, yet it is governed by only five supervisors, each overseeing about 2 million people. The result has been reactionary leadership that maintains the status quo when the challenges we face require speed and innovation. Read more: Editorial: Voters just passed L.A. County's most important government reform in decades At its core, Measure G is about ensuring that the county can meet our greatest challenges. After all, the design of a government shapes the behaviors of those who govern us. The Board of Supervisors will be expanded, over time, to nine members from five. And an elected county executive will provide for the separation of executive and legislative powers, and a more accountable county government. Take for example the devastating January fires. The Palisades and Eaton fires tore through the cities of Los Angeles, Malibu, Pasadena and Sierra Madre. The largest devastation in terms of deaths, homes lost and residents displaced was in the unincorporated neighborhood of Altadena. Instead of having one voice and one plan leading fire response and recovery at the county level, residents must navigate a maze of district by district bureaucracy to put the pieces of their life back together. Imagine if there was just one elected county executive guiding one regional strategy — this is the future we can create. Read more: Your guide to Measure G: Expanding the L.A. County Board of Supervisors, electing a county executive Now let's consider homelessness — the most pressing issue facing the county year after year. Despite spending billions of dollars each year, the county has yet to move the needle far enough in addressing the issue. When an audit was mandated by U.S. District Judge David O. Carter, the county learned of eye-popping inefficiencies and nepotism, leading it to pull its funding from the city-county Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, and leading to the resignation of the agency's chief executive. Is this effective governance? Is this the best we can do? In their recent book 'Abundance,' Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson point to the need for proactive government in fostering innovation and breaking stagnation that places such as Los Angeles face. But ending the status quo won't be easy. So many entities will resist change — agencies that have been allowed to underperform, vendors who overcharge, nonprofit organizations whose million-dollar contracts with the county may change — because an opaque county system is working for them. Read more: Two workers fired from LAHSA had accused top executive of improper behavior Right now, the vision and continuity of the county change on an annual basis along with the rotating chair structure of the five-member board. Most actions get decided based on district preferences instead of the regional greater good. But as the founding fathers noted, government works best with checks and balances. The county supervisors, as the legislative branch, should have a healthy level of friction with an executive to keep them accountable to the people. Measure G's addition of an elected county executive establishes those checks and balances. This change is critical to the leadership needed to tackle major crises such as homelessness and emergency response. The new task force will also define the scope of a new independent ethics commission mandated by the measure. Read more: Los Angeles homeless chief to resign after the county guts her agency Measure G is not just governance reform — it's also democratic renewal. Los Angeles County's form of government hasn't changed since 1912, when our population was just 500,000 and women didn't have the right to vote. To have world class transportation countywide, to transition to a green economy, to lessen disparities between rich and poor requires innovation. As the task force begins the process to implement the voter-approved Measure G, we need the voices of all 88 cities and our hundreds of neighborhoods to help define the future of county government. Tune in for our livestreamed meetings, email your ideas to the task force and be sure to get involved as the task force develops and rolls out a community engagement strategy in the coming months. We can't afford to waste this opportunity. As a member of the task force, I welcome your participation in shaping the county we all deserve. This thrilling process starts Friday — join us. Sara Sadhwani is a politics professor at Pomona College and was appointed by Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, co-author of Measure G, to serve on the Governance Reform Task Force. If it's in the news right now, the L.A. Times' Opinion section covers it. Sign up for our weekly opinion newsletter. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Los Angeles Times
6 days ago
- Politics
- Los Angeles Times
The overhaul of L.A. County government begins now
In November, Los Angeles County voters approved Measure G, which promised to transform county governance. The process that will implement its reforms begins now with the creation of the Governance Reform Task Force, and L.A. County leaders, residents and media need to be engaged because, as the saying goes, 'The devil is in the details.' For too long, the county has underserved the people of Los Angeles. With nearly 10 million residents, our county is more populous than 40 U.S. states, yet it is governed by only five supervisors, each overseeing about 2 million people. The result has been reactionary leadership that maintains the status quo when the challenges we face require speed and innovation. At its core, Measure G is about ensuring that the county can meet our greatest challenges. After all, the design of a government shapes the behaviors of those who govern us. The Board of Supervisors will be expanded, over time, to nine members from five. And an elected county executive will provide for the separation of executive and legislative powers, and a more accountable county government. Take for example the devastating January fires. The Palisades and Eaton fires tore through the cities of Los Angeles, Malibu, Pasadena and Sierra Madre. The largest devastation in terms of deaths, homes lost and residents displaced was in the unincorporated neighborhood of Altadena. Instead of having one voice and one plan leading fire response and recovery at the county level, residents must navigate a maze of district by district bureaucracy to put the pieces of their life back together. Imagine if there was just one elected county executive guiding one regional strategy — this is the future we can create. Now let's consider homelessness — the most pressing issue facing the county year after year. Despite spending billions of dollars each year, the county has yet to move the needle far enough in addressing the issue. When an audit was mandated by U.S. District Judge David O. Carter, the county learned of eye-popping inefficiencies and nepotism, leading it to pull its funding from the city-county Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, and leading to the resignation of the agency's chief executive. Is this effective governance? Is this the best we can do? In their recent book 'Abundance,' Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson point to the need for proactive government in fostering innovation and breaking stagnation that places such as Los Angeles face. But ending the status quo won't be easy. So many entities will resist change — agencies that have been allowed to underperform, vendors who overcharge, nonprofit organizations whose million-dollar contracts with the county may change — because an opaque county system is working for them. Right now, the vision and continuity of the county change on an annual basis along with the rotating chair structure of the five-member board. Most actions get decided based on district preferences instead of the regional greater good. But as the founding fathers noted, government works best with checks and balances. The county supervisors, as the legislative branch, should have a healthy level of friction with an executive to keep them accountable to the people. Measure G's addition of an elected county executive establishes those checks and balances. This change is critical to the leadership needed to tackle major crises such as homelessness and emergency response. The new task force will also define the scope of a new independent ethics commission mandated by the measure. Measure G is not just governance reform — it's also democratic renewal. Los Angeles County's form of government hasn't changed since 1912, when our population was just 500,000 and women didn't have the right to vote. To have world class transportation countywide, to transition to a green economy, to lessen disparities between rich and poor requires innovation. As the task force begins the process to implement the voter-approved Measure G, we need the voices of all 88 cities and our hundreds of neighborhoods to help define the future of county government. Tune in for our livestreamed meetings, email your ideas to the task force and be sure to get involved as the task force develops and rolls out a community engagement strategy in the coming months. We can't afford to waste this opportunity. As a member of the task force, I welcome your participation in shaping the county we all deserve. This thrilling process starts Friday — join us. Sara Sadhwani is a politics professor at Pomona College and was appointed by Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, co-author of Measure G, to serve on the Governance Reform Task Force.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
The Supreme Court wants to make it easier to build
The Supreme Court handed down an opinion on Thursday that reads like it was written by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, the authors of an influential book arguing that excessive regulation of land use and development has made it too difficult to build housing and infrastructure in the United States. (Ezra is also a co-founder of Vox.) Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, Colorado concerns a proposed railroad line that would run through 88 miles of Utah, connecting the state's oil-rich Uinta Basin to the broader national rail network. The line is expected to make it easier to transport crude oil extracted in this region to refineries elsewhere in the country. The Court's opinion in Seven County places strict new limits on a federal law that a lower court relied upon to prevent this line from being constructed — limits that should make it easier for developers to build large-scale projects. Before this rail project can move forward, it must be approved by the Surface Transportation Board. Under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), moreover, this board is required to produce an environmental impact statement, which identifies any significant environmental effects from the rail project as well as ways to mitigate those effects. Significantly, as Justice Brett Kavanaugh explains in the Court's Seven County opinion, 'NEPA imposes no substantive environmental obligations or restrictions' on the board or on any other federal agency. It requires agencies to identify potential environmental harms that could arise out of development projects that they approve, but once those harms are identified in an environmental impact statement, the agency is free to decide that the benefits of the project outweigh those harms. Nevertheless, NEPA is often a significant hindrance to land development because litigants who oppose a particular project — be they environmental groups or just private citizens looking to shut development down — can often sue, claiming that the federal agency that must approve the project did not prepare an adequate environmental impact statement. As a result, Kavanaugh writes in his Seven County opinion, 'litigation-averse agencies…take ever more time…to prepare ever longer EISs for future projects.' Indeed, the Seven County case itself is a poster child for just how burdensome NEPA can be. The Surface Transportation Board produced an environmental impact statement that is more than 3,600 pages, and it goes into great detail about the rail line's potential impact on topics ranging from water quality to vulnerable species, such as the greater sage-grouse. Nevertheless, a federal appeals court blocked the project because it determined that this 3,600-page report did not adequately discuss the environmental impacts of making it easier to extract oil from the Uinta Basin. The appeals court reasoned that the agency needed to consider not just the direct environmental impacts of the rail line itself but also the impact of increased drilling and oil refining after the project is complete. All eight of the justices that heard the Seven County case (Justice Neil Gorsuch was recused) agreed that this appeals court decision was wrong, although Kavanaugh's majority opinion for himself and his Republican colleagues is broader than a separate opinion by Justice Sonia Sotomayor. The justices' agreement in Seven County, moreover, mirrors a growing bipartisan consensus that NEPA has become too much of a burden to development. As Kavanaugh notes in his opinion, President Joe Biden signed legislation in 2023 that limits environmental impact statements to 150 pages and requires them to be completed in two years or less. Still, Kavanaugh's opinion goes even further, repeatedly instructing courts to be deferential to an agency's decision to greenlight a project after producing an environmental impact statement. One striking thing about Kavanaugh's opinion is how closely it mirrors the rhetoric of liberal proponents of an 'abundance' agenda, which seeks to raise American standards of living by promoting large infrastructure projects. These proponents often claim that well-meaning laws intended to advance liberal values can have the opposite effect when they impose too many burdens on developers. As Kavanaugh argues, NEPA has 'transformed from a modest procedural requirement into a blunt and haphazard tool' that even stymies clean energy projects ranging 'from wind farms to hydroelectric dams, from solar farms to geothermal wells.' Broadly speaking, Kavanaugh's opinion imposes two limits on future NEPA lawsuits. The first is simply a blunt statement that courts should be highly reluctant to second-guess an agency's decision that it has conducted an adequate environmental review. As Kavanaugh writes, 'the bedrock principle of judicial review in NEPA cases can be stated in a word: Deference.' Kavanaugh also criticizes the appeals court for blocking one project — the Utah rail line — because of the environmental impacts of 'geographically separate projects that may be built' as a result of that rail line, such as an oil refinery elsewhere in the country. As Kavanaugh writes, 'the effects from a separate project may be factually foreseeable, but that does not mean that those effects are relevant to the agency's decisionmaking process or that it is reasonable to hold the agency responsible for those effects.' Both Kavanaugh and the separate opinion by Sotomayor also point to the fact that 'the Board here possesses no regulatory authority over those separate projects.' That is, while the transportation board is tasked with approving rail lines, other agencies are in charge of regulating projects, such as oil wells or refineries. As Sotomayor writes, an agency is not required to consider environmental harms that it has 'no authority to prevent.' So Seven County is a fairly significant victory for land developers as well as for traditional libertarians and for liberal proponents of an abundance agenda. It significantly weakens a statute that has long been a bête noire of developers.
