We are still living in the 1970s. That is a choice, not a requirement
Ezra Klein has been writing frequently about the need for a new progressivism and, by extension, a new Democratic Party that is focused on building things rather than just spending money on stuff that already exists. His column from yesterday was a continuation of that. I highly recommend reading it.
I have also been writing about the need for more building of all kinds of things and have made that a goal of mine for the foreseeable future. It ties into a broader theme of what I have been writing about and that is the need to be dynamic, nimble, flexible and to avoid ideological straightjackets. Problems that existed many decades ago are not the same as the problems we have today. Trying the same approach that worked for one set of issues will not work for a whole new set of different issues.
The problem for the US in general, and places like California in particular, is that we are basically still living in the 1970s. That was when the modern regulatory state began along with our addiction to procedures and wanting to give voices to ordinary citizens. The ideas were good, but are not helping with the problems of today and are in fact making them worse in many cases.
Culprits that I have written about before such as the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and stringent zoning laws trace their origins to the 1970s. Since that time, the US has basically stopped building things. Hardly any nuclear plants have been built since then and many have been shut down only to be replaced by coal or gas. Housing supply has been far behind demand and more and more cities have become unaffordable for most people. What was intended to deal with environmental problems during the 1970s has produced NIMBYism covering things that have nothing to do with the environment.
It is not just that building things has gotten much harder, but the cost of building things has surged. As Klein notes, the cost of building rail in the US is vastly higher than it is in Europe. Infrastructure costs in general are much higher in the US than most anywhere else. Even small, local projects can take years to build and run millions, if not billions, over the initial cost estimate. It was not always this way. The Empire State Building was built in less than 18 months in 1930. Even though our technology and knowledge are much greater than they were back then, there is not a snowball’s chance in hell that a similar project could happen in that time. Today, it takes years just to build a single subway station.
Why infrastructure costs have gotten so much more expensive and long is the subject of plenty of debate. As Klein notes, unions are common in Europe so blaming them does not hold up nor does claiming that government is inherently bad at doing things. It is not for lack of technical expertise or available workers. There does not seem to be any solid consensus as to why costs are so high here.
I have my own idea although I am by no means an authority on the matter. Francis Fukuyama coined the term vetocracy some time ago. What it refers to is rule by veto. That is to say the only time anything can get done is by satisfying a wide swath of people. Any one of them can potentially stop something from going forward. Power is so widely distributed to the point where nobody can do anything absent overwhelming support.
That sounds great, right? Don’t we want there to be a large consensus before moving forward? The problem is that few of the people involved are high-minded or thinking about the big picture. Instead, they are focused on their own parochial interests. Their interest is in keeping things as they are and not being disturbed in any way. There is no way to compromise with someone like that and so often nothing happens. Other governments that were vetocracies include the Articles of Confederation and the Roman Republic to give you an idea of how well that arrangement has worked out before.
The only way for any kind of project to go forward is to either satisfy tons of NIMBYs, which will water it down substantially, or to endure years of litigation at a massive financial cost. I could be wrong, but I really believe that is why we cannot build things like we used to. We have given veto power to so many different groups that any one of them can sue to stop things from going forward. The only way for any project to go froward is to placate tons of people, which adds substantially to its cost both in terms of time and money, assuming it happens at all.
It is true that the US has a much more complicated governmental structure than most other democracies and makes doing things harder, but that has always been the case. It has only been since the 1970s where veto power was given out so widely that most everything has slowed to a halt. It was as if some people decided things were as good as they could get and they wanted to keep what was theirs no matter what. Laws like NEPA made it easier for anyone potentially effected by a project involving the federal government to sue in court. On the local level, the rise of neighborhood groups and community meetings during that time has made building housing much harder.
This article discusses the problem of community meetings in the case of San Francisco. While it is an extreme case, other cities may not be terribly far behind. In San Francisco, almost any proposed housing development has to get approved by the neighborhood it will be built in. That is usually decided at community meetings, which are intended to give a voice to ordinary citizens. In practice, as the article notes, it is not at all democratic. The people who show up tend to be disproportionately, older, white and higher income, regardless of the neighborhood demographics. They are usually NIMBYs who just want to keep everything as it is. Many proposed housing developments have either been watered down because of that or developers have given up after years of litigation. If only a few neighborhoods were dominated by NIMBYs, it would be manageable, but when all of them are it becomes a crisis.
San Francisco, though extreme, is a microcosm of what is happening nationwide. Veto power is so widely distributed and NIMBYism is so prevalent that the ability to build most anything is vastly less than it used to be. Environmental groups frequently champion that, but, as Klein notes in his column, laws like NEPA stand in the way of clean energy projects. Still, environmental groups defend it to the death and any time there is an attempt to weaken it they cry bloody murder. There is a large tradeoff between promoting clean energy and stopping all building. Most environmental groups do not seem to have figured that out. Long story short, the reason things are so hard and costly to build in the US is because of legal and political barriers.
What are the solutions?
I would be lying if I said I knew exactly what needs to be done. Obviously, the vetocracy we have created over the last 50 years needs to be reined in, but how? It will not be one thing that does it. In the case of zoning laws, ideally enough people in expensive cities would start to connect the dots between that and high housing costs. While that could happen, it is not a good bet. Few people pay attention to local politics and the few who do are generally NIMBYs. That is why zoning laws should not be written by local officials. States should override their authority on that.
Laws like NEPA need to be reined in as well. Specifically, I am not sure how. It is definitely the case that the ability of everyone potentially affected to sue is bad, but I am not sure how best to limit it. I can imagine there are plenty of people out there who could give a solid answer, but I am not one of them. That said, I would probably be willing to take a gamble on substantially gutting it given that the clean energy projects it stops will likely do way more good than the dirty projects it stops will cause in harm. It is important to remember that NEPA is not an environmental law, but an environmental review law that just requires endless paperwork. Laws like the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act are environmental laws and I support them. They are not what is preventing things from getting built.
I think it really is going to require a change in mindset. Far too many of our regulatory officials are excessively cautious and have zero risk tolerance. Either they need to change their ways or different people should have their jobs, but how we get there I do not know. As Klein notes, it is very difficult for government employees to get fired. The traditional reason for that is that they are not paid very much compared to their private sector counterparts. Maybe that needs to change. Maybe we should be paying public employees at all levels much more in return for eliminating job security. But as Klein also notes, doing that would anger public sector unions and so Democrats would be in a bit of a pickle. Although Klein does not mention this, I have a hard time seeing Republicans agreeing to make that trade, too, given their demonization of most public employees and their unwillingness to spend any money on making the government work better. For them, a dysfunctional government is a feature, not a bug, even though it does not lead to their fantasy of “small government.”
In the case of transmission lines, the solution is straight forward. The biggest barrier to building more transmission lines is from NIMBYs, usually on the state or local level. An example of that is a proposed transmission line to be built to bring hydropower from Quebec to New England. Last November, voters in Maine supported an initiative to block it, which had support from some environmental groups. While the state supreme court may rule against the legality of it, for now the project is not happening and people in New England will continue to burn gas and heating oil. The solution here is easy. The federal government should override Maine and require the transmission line to be built. The same is true for any other states that stand in the way.
For anyone with crocodile tears about states’ rights, the federal government has exclusive authority over anything coming from abroad. The same is true for transmission lines crossing state lines so let’s not waste any time pretending to care about federalism. The federal government already overrides states on building pipelines and transmission lines should have the same level of support. Clean energy is absolutely vital and we need a lot more of it. In the case of Maine, a few NIMBYs there do not get to prevent millions of people from having clean electricity.
We can act when we want to
We are perfectly capable of doing things. We have seen many examples of that recently. The CARES Act, despite being a huge and expensive bill, was passed within weeks in March 2020. Vaccines were developed within a year of the pandemic starting. The government has taken quick action to deal with the problem of baby formula shortages. What those situations all share in common is they were dealing with emergencies nobody could deny existed.
That is the key. We can act, but often that requires being prodded into it. But that is not always the case. In fact, there has been quite a bit of action in Congress happening under the hood lately. Last year, Congress passed the first comprehensive infrastructure bill in decades. This year, Congress approved legislation shoring up the Postal Service after years of fighting over it. Support for it was overwhelmingly bipartisan.
While emergencies are good at forcing action, they are not required. We have to want to do things. Infrastructure is important and in need of many repairs and upgrades, but is hardly an existential threat. Still, Congress acted on it. That happened because it was made a priority. More housing can be built and laws restricting it can be repealed if it is made a priority. While the federal government probably can only do so much, the Biden Administration did put out a great plan for dealing with the housing shortage, which involves doling out infrastructure money to areas based on how much housing is getting built. It also pushes for more factory-built housing, which has traditionally been disfavored by regulations. Here’s hoping it makes a difference.
Action can happen at the state level, too, even in California. A few months ago, I wrote about how NIMBYs had prevented UC-Berkeley from enrolling more students. As things stood then, several thousand students were told that they could not enroll after having been sent acceptance letters. Luckily, the state legislature intervened and unanimously passed legislation allowing for the students to be enrolled. Even in California, there are limits to what NIMBYs can do when they anger enough people.
Even better, last year California enacted legislation that allows lots previously zoned only for single-family homes to be used for building up to 4 units. To be sure, the devil is in the details in terms of how enforced it will be. Already, some local governments are suing to get the law stopped or are trying to find ways to evade it. I hope the state has zero tolerance for that and brings down the hammer on local NIMBYs. Everyone agrees California has a housing crisis, but only some actually care. While this new law is hardly sufficient, it is absolutely necessary and anyone opposed to it is showing their true colors.
There is no such thing as risk-free
The state we are in now is a choice. Making it difficult to build things is a choice. There is no natural law that says it has to be that way. No deity came down from the heavens and decreed it.
We have to be willing to disrupt some things and change our ways. That will mean taking on risk in some areas while recognizing the risks of inaction. In the case of nuclear power, that means the willingness to experiment with smaller reactors. Is there a chance something could go wrong? Probably, but the alternative is much more dangerous and that is the world continues to burn fossil fuels. In the case of medicine and food, would weakening the FDA mean bad medicine or food could be approved here? Possibly, but right now we are being deprived of everything from baby formula to vaccines to test kits and those are just the most high-profile cases.
We will need to be willing to take more chances in some areas, but the idea that risk is something we can eliminate is fantasy. Risk is always there. The question is whether we are willing to take it on for the benefits we could get. Being hypercautious about allowing any building to happen is hardly risk-free. In places like California with the most stringent zoning laws, housing is the least affordable and homelessness is the highest. Did I mention that making people live far away from where they work requires them to make long commutes and increases carbon emissions?
Tradeoffs always exist. Risks are always there. There is no way around it and that is okay. We live with risks everyday and take risks with most everything we do. We should stop pretending otherwise.