Read this post on Josh’s Substack: Powering Spaceship Earth.
Reliable, affordable energy underpins America’s economy, national security, and global competitiveness. By facilitating an all-of-the-above approach, the federal government can dramatically expand energy abundance. Below are concrete, actionable steps to lower energy costs for consumers, expand energy supplies, and keep the United States at the forefront of innovation and opportunity.
Facilitate an all-of-the-above energy strategy
Electricity generation comes in many forms, and all face barriers, along with energy infrastructure, such as transmission. In fact, permitting reform has long been a bipartisan effort. Presidents Clinton, Bush, Obama, Biden, and Trump have all recognized that long reviews have frustrated their policy goals.
Congress can improve permitting by:
- Replacing procedural requirements with substantive protections on environmental quality.
- Requiring that permitting agencies consider only the direct, proximate, and reasonably foreseeable effects of federal actions.
- Exempting more regular actions from reviews and expanding categorical exemptions.
- Allowing injunctions only in rare cases where (1) they are brought promptly, and (2) brought by those with a direct and preexisting connection to the action’s affected area, and (3) there are risks of imminent and substantial environmental harm, and there is no other equitable remedy available as a matter of law.
- Directing agencies to develop procedures and reforms that allow swift leasing and use of federal lands for all types of energy and mineral development and production. For example, centralizing mining-related permits into a single agency or office.
- Making the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission the lead agency in environmental reviews of transmission projects and extending categorical exclusions to transmission projects.
Plug more generators in faster
Scholars and the Government Accountability Office have identified problems in electricity markets that slow down connecting generation to the electrical grid. Only Texas seems immune to this challenge, connecting more new capacity and a wider variety of sources than any other grid.
Congress can speed grid connections for generation of all types by:
- Directing the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to host a technical conference and related rulemaking on interconnection rules and the barriers that capacity markets create to quickly connecting more generation capacity.
- As part of this conference and rulemaking, FERC must investigate the economic foundations of capacity markets to set boundaries on their operations in practice. The goal is to replace bloated planning with market-driven investments that encourage efficiency, adaptation, and innovation.
- Require FERC to submit annual reports on interconnection timelines and how they are facilitating interconnections.
Encourage innovation on the grid
Technological innovations have out-paced rules on the electrical system. Congress and FERC need to pursue reforms that open opportunities for innovation on the electrical grid. To this end, Congress should:
- Require that FERC begin a new rulemaking on large load interconnection processes that accounts for (1) flexibility from on-site energy assets that includes co-location, (2) the ability to move load from sites where the grid is stressed, (3) the possibility of energy parks that incorporate multiple energy assets, and (4) the emergence of new energy technologies like batteries.
Rationalize US nuclear regulation
It took five years and $1 billion to permit and build the Connecticut Yankee nuclear plant. In contrast, Vogtle’s nuclear reactor in Georgia took 14 years just to build and more than $30 billion. Congress can revitalize and unleash the US nuclear industry by:
- Allocating federal lands to nuclear energy development.
- Condition federal energy funds on removing state-level bans on nuclear power.
- Replacing the “as low as reasonably achievable,” or ALARA standard, and linear no-threshold (LNT) modeling with risk-informed, performance-based frameworks.
- Allowing developers and operators to propose innovative safety measures rather than mandating prescriptive processes that hinder technological advancement.
Separately from Congress, the Trump Administration should welcome the Texas v. NRC case on the Utilization Facility Rule and direct the DOJ to settle the case immediately in favor of the plaintiff’s claims.
Plentiful energy is affordable energy
Concerns about meeting load growth from industrialization and artificial intelligence reflect difficulties in building new power plants. Plentiful energy is affordable and reliable energy. Congress will best keep energy costs low while expanding economic opportunities for the country by making it easier to build.