Weather Permitting – by Bill McKibben – The Crucial Years

Source: Weather Permitting – by Bill McKibben – The Crucial Years

But energy permitting is an even more touchy business, because—well, because the goal is not more permits. The goal is less carbon and more equity, and so a sound permitting scheme would take those things into account. I wrote a piece for Mother Jones not long ago aimed at people like me (older, white, and good at tying things up in knots) trying to suggest when we might, as individuals, hold off on opposing new projects. The Senate (also older, white, and good at tying things up) is doubtless eager for my advice as well, and that would be: be careful. Trying to gut federal laws like the National Environmental Policy Act could lead to more backlash and actually consume time. If there ends up being some kind of legislation, three things I’d push for if I were a Senator (which, thank heaven, I’m not)

1. Looking forward: a climate test. When he was trying to make up his mind over the perhaps the most contentious energy permit yet, for the KXL pipeline, Barack Obama said “our national interest will be served only if this project does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution.” Given that the climate crisis is the greatest threat our species has yet faced, that seems like the most no-brainer position anyone could ever take. But of course the fossil fuel industry and its Congressional harem would like to use permitting reform to build more stuff that would produce carbon. This is literally absurd. As Abigail Dillen, president of EarthJustice, says: “The only science-based climate screen is no new fossil fuels projects. The world’s climate scientists are crystal clear about that, and we can do it.” If there’s going to be permitting reform, it should take physics into account.
2. Looking backward: a fairness test. You don’t actually have to be a history professor to know who’s been damaged by our energy system in the past: Indigenous people, whose land has been too often wrecked, and vulnerable communities who have gotten to live next to the refineries and highways. So Indigenous communities and environmental justice communities deserve an extra layer of protection from big projects—how that should be structured is not for me to decide, but I note that the Inflation Reduction Act targets dollars at those communities, which in one respect is good but may also raise the pressure to do developments in those place.