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Aron Roberts's avatar

Thanks, Sarah!

The readily actionable, two-step approach you've outlined – "what's blocking" and most importantly, "who can change that" – is valuable.

Some notes:

1. It might be worth mentioning Thompson and Klein's upcoming book?

https://twitter.com/ezraklein/status/1571940856176971776

(My apologies if you already did, here or elsewhere, and I just missed that.)

2. From a quick scan of my bookmarks, yet more people who appear to be on board with the "abundance" agenda:

Bloomberg's editorial board: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-04-21/want-green-energy-cut-red-tape (see https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/editorial-board)

Jonathan Chait: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/09/why-are-environmental-activists-trying-to-stop-green-energy.html (green energy)

Alan M. Cole: https://twitter.com/AlanMCole/status/1559921036778512385 (offshore wind energy)

Klaus Kinski: https://klaussimplifies.substack.com/p/do-we-need-more-software (re investments in software crowding out the building of physical things)

Tim Latimer: https://twitter.com/TimMLatimer/status/1517244510698455041 (geothermal energy)

Andrew S. Potts: https://twitter.com/AndrewSPotts/status/1525943519818424322 (importance of rehabilitation/refurbishing in the "building agenda," not just new construction)

Scott Santens: https://twitter.com/scottsantens/status/1416876183770308609 (from the perspective of a major UBI advocate)

Elan Sykes: https://twitter.com/Elan_Sykes/status/1527289147265667074 (metals needed for green energy)

James Temple: https://twitter.com/jtemple/status/1574932732328611840 (energy generation and transmission projects)

Alex Trembath: https://www.city-journal.org/cost-disease-environmentalism (restrictions that have made building project labor more expensive)

Matthew Yglesias: https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1567911625331441666 (RT'ing Cole, above)

For those in this list who've tweeted, checking the "Lists they're on" (on Twitter) might turn up some user-maintained lists of yet more people who might participate in this budding movement.

3. For anyone choosing to take this on, there's likely a ton of wisdom to be gleaned from those who've tackled *specific* types of restrictions: both in relaxing or overturning those, and in coming away with generally applicable patterns.

For instance, companies running into restrictions that restrict or unduly delay the building of liquid fuel pipelines, geothermal energy plants, or mass transit routes would be able to provide case studies about their particular experiences.

4. AIUI, three key impediments to building, beyond formal laws and regulations, have been a) public official, citizen, and interest group concerns around deleterious environmental impacts; b) neighbors, who might not take kindly to having some particular activities near them; and c) competitors, who might not want something built because it competes with their own business models.

That suggests that approaches capable of identifying those holding such concerns, respecting their viewpoints, and adeptly bringing them into the fold, either as participants or at least non-opponents, could be valuable? Naively, that might take the form of building relationships, offering incentives, making compromises, finding genuine mitigations or workarounds, and/or approaching people in their circles who they trust, and thus can help influence them, among others. Again, this might be an area where identifying patterns for being effective within this "messy, people-related" arena could be productive.

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Jason Crawford's avatar

Excellent post.

Yes, I think policy efforts like this have to have a minimum 10-year time horizon. YIMBY movement has been building for about that long: https://www.slowboring.com/p/ten-years-of-yimbyism-have-accomplished

Many other examples. Silent Spring → NEPA was about 10 years. Mont Pelerin → deregulation of the '70s was more like 25 years.

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