This piece originally appeared at Green Tape.
Last week on Green Tape, we talked about the upcoming NDAA negotiations and the opportunities for narrowly-tailored permitting reforms. In particular, my hope is that Congress will finally align NEPA with virtually every other environmental law by creating a carveout for defense readiness activities. In our current geopolitical moment, such a reform will be critical to our national security.
I’m convinced that there’s another big permitting reform opportunity for the upcoming defense package, however: a NEPA carveout for electricity infrastructure on Department of Defense (DoD) land. In short: electricity generation developed on or delivered to military installations should be exempt from NEPA.
The Opportunity
Readers may think this sounds like a niche reform. It is not. The Department of Defense owns 8.8 million acres of land in the United States. More importantly, DoD is the largest consumer of energy in the federal government and one of the largest consumers of energy in the world. Its purchasing power – and thus its ability to bring energy technologies to scale – is enormous.
