Marc Dunkelman on Permit Reform
Marc Dunkelman, author of Why Nothing Works, calls for a balance between public authority and individual rights: "Public authority shouldn’t be so unchecked that government can impose new infrastructure on a community without local residents being able to register their opposition in a meaningful way. Neither should it be that those residents’ parochial concerns always trump the greater good.
To restore their political appeal, Democrats need to articulate a vision of government that balances individual rights with the broader public interest."
@Steven Ghan
I don't know about thinking boldly as it is always going to be easier to tear things down than to build things up. The balancing of individual rights with the broader public interest is always the system we have, but there will be winners and losers and the winner is always going to say it is balanced and the loser is always going to say it is not balanced. As for Biden's solar and wind, he didn't have permitting reform. He did what he could administratively, but it takes years, longer than the term of office. I don't think there is any bold new system, but our permitting reform will move things along faster and some people will get squashed, but that is nature of the beast. We will build a new nuclear waste repository somewhere and someone will get squashed as that is the nature of the beast.
Search Forums
Forum help
Select a question below
CCL Community Guidelines
- Discuss, ask and share
- Be respectful
- Respect confidentiality
- Protect privacy
CCL Blog Policy Area Categories
- Price on Carbon
- CBAM
- Clean Energy Permitting Reform
- Healthy Forests
- Building Electrification and Efficiency

