Energy
Can Florida Revolutionize the Nuclear Energy Sector?
A new bill in the Sunshine State’s legislature seeks to streamline the approval process for constructing nuclear reactors.
Policy & Regulation
Latest articles
Energy
America Helped Build China’s Rare Earth Monopoly
China’s monopoly on rare earth elements is not accidental. The United States, once the world leader in rare earth element production, helped create its own decline as environmental regulations and shifting industrial economics pushed production capacity offshore, allowing an increasingly adversarial nation to gain leverage over materials essential to defense systems and advanced technologies. Reasserting U.S. independence will require rebuilding our domestic supply chain and renewed coordination between government and industry.
Energy
Trump Already Won Gold Stopping Offshore Wind
In its most recent foray against offshore wind, the administration announced it would appeal court rulings that allowed five offshore wind projects to proceed despite last December’s blanket construction halt on national security grounds. Yet the Administration’s ongoing actions risk derailing the possibility of reforming our broken permitting system—a downside far greater than allowing five fully permitted wind projects to go forward.
Energy
NRC Finishes TerraPower’s Construction Permit Ahead of Schedule
In a welcoming milestone, TerraPower received approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for a construction permit for its advanced nuclear power plant in Kemmerer, Wyoming. The review, completed ahead of schedule, provides a hopeful signal that the United States is finally turning the corner on one of the biggest barriers to clean energy innovation: an outdated, slow, and unpredictable licensing and permitting system.
Environment
How Repealing the EPA Endangerment Finding Will Help the Planet
These days, the role of Chicken Little is filled by reporters and environmental extremists. Every time a conservative administration somewhere in the world proposes to roll back an expensive environmental regulation, rest assured, we’ll hear that the sky is falling in on us.
Infrastructure
How Donald Trump Softening His Tone on Wind Could Unlock Permitting Reform
The Trump administration recently announced it would appeal court rulings that allowed offshore wind projects to proceed with construction. This follows the administration’s halt to construction on five projects last December for national security reasons, even though those projects had already received permits and are nearly complete. If the goal is true American energy dominance, the bigger task is fixing the broken permitting system that slows every form of American energy infrastructure.
Energy
DOE Takes Important Step to Modernize Nuclear Permitting
The Department of Energy recently announced that certain advanced nuclear reactor projects can qualify for a categorical exclusion from the National Environmental Policy Act’s (NEPA) full review process. The move is a practical step forward to accelerate innovation, reduce unnecessary cost and delay, and strengthen U.S. competitiveness in nuclear energy.
Conservation
Stop Spending Billions on Courtroom Battles and Start Saving Species
A recent report from ConservAmerica analyzed two decades of energy and infrastructure projects to quantify the ESA’s effects. What it found is that the United States regularly spends billions of dollars fighting over endangered species in court when it should prioritize preventative conservation and economic incentives.
Conservation
Policy Inaction Threatens the West’s Energy and Water Supplies
Ringing in the new year in Washington is often accompanied by the hope that your “fill-in-the-blank” long-stalled policy priority finally makes headway. When it comes to forest management, Congress can’t afford another year of delay.
Energy
The Department of Energy Takes on ALARA
Last fall, Energy Secretary Chris Wright told the audience at Senator John Curtis’ conservative climate summit that “nuclear is going to become sexy again.” For policy wonks and proponents of modernizing outdated nuclear regulation, there may be nothing sexier than reforming ALARA.