Are environmental regulations hurting the environment?

[Travis]

As you know California is getting ready to start construction on a 500 mile long high speed train system. A project many support because it will get people out of cars and airplanes in a state where the quality of air is a huge pressing concern.

But getting environmental clearance for the project is proving to be a huge and costly headache because of the byzantine environmental justice system we have in California.

An example is the Environmental Impact Report or EIR for just one sub segment of the project. This is the second draft of it because the city of Hanford objected to only an eastern bypass of the city being studied. A new report was compiled to study a western route that they then also complained about because they want the train to just quantum tunnel through the city apparently.

Anyways the report is 30,000 pages long and cost nearly $10 million to produce and those opposed to the project are demanding yet another report because they think more than three routes should be studied for the Bakersfield region. Remember this is just for one 80 mile long sub segment of the larger project. All the other segments are having their own reports compiled while we speak (or type such as it is). When one considers the environmental benefits of the project it seems bizarre that it is being hamstrung in such a manner. This isn't the only project that is facing such hurdles. Wind farms, ultra dense housing and other projects intended to help the environment are also being held up and sometimes killed by opponents because of the way the process needs to be conducted. In fact it is a well known issue that it is practically impossible to build any form of new electrical power plant in California. When it is just as hard or harder to put up a wind farm as a coal plant one might think things have gotten off base.

So now there is a push to reform environmental regulations in California. Many are suggesting we just throw out the existing rules as they have been constantly amended into an incomprehensible Kafkaesque nightmare over the decades and start over.

What I'm wondering is if this is something that might need to spread.

 

[JeanFromBNA]

Add to your observations that the review of environmental reports and studies and the processing of permits typically have no deadline and no criterion, and you have a way to stall a project indefinitely.

 

[Battman]

So how are people supposed to charge up their electric cars in California if they can't build any power plants? Where I live (Alberta) it seems that it's easier to build a power plant than it is to build the transmission lines from it to distribute the power.

 

[Beerina]

As you know California is getting ready to start construction on a 500 mile long high speed train system. A project many support because it will get people out of cars and airplanes in a state where the quality of air is a huge pressing concern.

But getting environmental clearance for the project is proving to be a huge and costly headache because of the byzantine environmental justice system we have in California.

 

[Sam.I.Am]

As you know California is getting ready to start construction on a 500 mile long high speed train system. A project many support because it will get people out of cars and airplanes in a state where the quality of air is a huge pressing concern.

But getting environmental clearance for the project is proving to be a huge and costly headache because of the byzantine environmental justice system we have in California.

An example is the Environmental Impact Report or EIR for just one sub segment of the project. This is the second draft of it because the city of Hanford objected to only an eastern bypass of the city being studied. A new report was compiled to study a western route that they then also complained about because they want the train to just quantum tunnel through the city apparently.

Anyways the report is 30,000 pages long and cost nearly $10 million to produce and those opposed to the project are demanding yet another report because they think more than three routes should be studied for the Bakersfield region. Remember this is just for one 80 mile long sub segment of the larger project. All the other segments are having their own reports compiled while we speak (or type such as it is). When one considers the environmental benefits of the project it seems bizarre that it is being hamstrung in such a manner. This isn't the only project that is facing such hurdles. Wind farms, ultra dense housing and other projects intended to help the environment are also being held up and sometimes killed by opponents because of the way the process needs to be conducted. In fact it is a well known issue that it is practically impossible to build any form of new electrical power plant in California. When it is just as hard or harder to put up a wind farm as a coal plant one might think things have gotten off base.

So now there is a push to reform environmental regulations in California. Many are suggesting we just throw out the existing rules as they have been constantly amended into an incomprehensible Kafkaesque nightmare over the decades and start over.

What I'm wondering is if this is something that might need to spread.

Not in appreciable numbers. But you already know that.

As far as the environmental regulations go they are the way that they are because of environmentalists. They intentionally got those laws so complicated so that they could stop projects almost at will by tying them up in the courts and costing the people who wanted to build the (insert whatever you want here) so much in court costs and delays that they would simply not start planning them in the first place. As the old saying goes, "Live by the sword, die by the sword.".

I have no sympathy for anyone who claims to want to "Save" the environment by building something that they think will help it in the long run but want to bypass the very laws that were put in place to make sure that the environment is "Protected" while building it.

Let the tactics that have been used by the so called "Environmentalists" to prevent much needed power plants and other infrastructure from being built be used against them over almost every inch of trackage for HSR and I say good. Let them have to deal with the same B.S. and cost overages that they put countless others through when it wasn't their ox being gored. Maybe the extra costs will kill the ill-advised project before it can bankrupt the state.

 

[Roboramma]

In other words, you agree that such regulations are bad policy that harms the state, but because it also harms people that you disagree with it's better to keep it in place.

 

[Sam.I.Am]

In other words, you agree that such regulations are bad policy that harms the state, but because it also harms people that you disagree with it's better to keep it in place.

No. I think that if the laws made sense before this then they make sense now. Those laws have been on the books for decades and have withstood the test of time so by default they must be good policy. I just find it funny that now, when they are being applied to them just as they have been applied to the "Bad" projects for years, the very same people who pushed to have those laws passed and rigorously enforced are now complaining that they are too onerous and expensive when it's their own pet project being subjected to the same level of scrutiny that they applied to others for decades. Like I said, live by the sword, die by the sword.

 

[Roboramma]

You think this is good policy?

As far as the environmental regulations go they are the way that they are because of environmentalists. They intentionally got those laws so complicated so that they could stop projects almost at will by tying them up in the courts and costing the people who wanted to build the (insert whatever you want here) so much in court costs and delays that they would simply not start planning them in the first place. As the old saying goes, "Live by the sword, die by the sword.".

Weird, it sounds like the exact opposite.

Personally, I don't know much about this issue, it just seems to me that if this is bad policy, and if environmentalists are finally being confronted with that fact, then now is the time to get them on board to change that bad policy, not to laugh and say "I told you so".

 

[Dragoonster]

Travis, sounds like the higher issue you should be mad about are bureaucratic regulations rather than environmental regulations.

This is the second draft of it because the city of Hanford objected to only an eastern bypass of the city being studied.

What does that have to do with environmental regulations? Are citizens of Hanford actually objecting to impacts on their environment? Could objection be instead centered on, gosh, fiscal impact?

I'm a Californian, and every single objection to high-speed-rail that I can recall has been economic. Both local and state. I can't remember environmentalists having enough power to torpedo it, or actually any single objection ever. This is actually news to me. And I will thus search. With key words "California high speed rail environment".

Oh, first Google hit: "Future of California High-Speed Rail Looks Green". http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2012/07/26/california-high-speed-rail/

Damn those environmentalists for, oh, uh, supporting high-speed rail.

 

[Sam.I.Am]

You think this is good policy?


Weird, it sounds like the exact opposite.

Personally, I don't know much about this issue, it just seems to me that if this is bad policy, and if environmentalists are finally being confronted with that fact, then now is the time to get them on board to change that bad policy, not to laugh and say "I told you so".

Actually I do think that the general philosophy behind the policy is good.

It's just that the environmentalists have intentionally and maliciously abused those very same policies for decades in the courts.

For example they have a past history in this state of starting a lawsuit that they knew was very likely going to be thrown out, then waiting until the last minute to file documents forcing the other side to ask for a continuance to review them, then asking for a continuance to read the opposing sides briefs at the last minute and so on until it got thrown out of court. Then, as soon as that one was thrown out, they would file another lawsuit at the last minute that could have been done concurrently with the previous one(s) and reset the clock all over again. I've seen both major and minor projects drawn out for years before a single shovel of dirt gets turned over (if ever because the other side either ran out of money, patience or both) only because of these tactics. So I have to admit seeing them get a taste of what they've been dishing out for years is somewhat satisfying.

If, after they have had the full experience that they have given countless others for years, they want to change the process then more power to them. But I'm willing to bet that they won't, they will probably try to get federal and state exemptions instead and then continue as before where the "Bad" projects are concerned.

I should be up front and tell you that I'm strongly opposed to the HSR project in general. I think that it's going to be a multi billion dollar white elephant (not counting these types of delays) that will never come even close to living up to the hype that its proponents claim today so I do hold a bit of bias, but so does Travis on the other end of the spectrum.

 

[Travis]

So how are people supposed to charge up their electric cars in California if they can't build any power plants? Where I live (Alberta) it seems that it's easier to build a power plant than it is to build the transmission lines from it to distribute the power.

This is supposing that people actually think out consequences. I railed against California's energy policy for years back in the late 90's and no one would listen.

You think this is good policy?


Weird, it sounds like the exact opposite.

Personally, I don't know much about this issue, it just seems to me that if this is bad policy, and if environmentalists are finally being confronted with that fact, then now is the time to get them on board to change that bad policy, not to laugh and say "I told you so".

This is not something new. For a long time now California has been saddled with the byzantine laws that encourage policies that ultimately defeat their intended purpose.

Well it is more complicated than that.

The laws originated in the 70's as some people wanted a mechanism to stop freeway and nuclear power plant construction. In order to get as much power as possible to stop these projects the laws that were put on the books gave enormous power to opponents. At the time everyone just shrugged their shoulders and went with it. After all building things like rapid transit was cheap and while it obviously precluded new power plants electricity could always be bought from other neighboring states where hardly anyone lived anyways.

It was extremely shortsighted. The first thing that happened was that other people turned right around and started using these laws against rapid transit projects. An action the anti-freeway people seemed to have never considered as a possibility. Then the laws were used by people who found dense residential construction unsightly to force land developers into huge spread out sprawl. At the time, when the long term consequences of such a paradigm were poorly understood, no one much cared.

At a more local level I saw this destroy a most promising project called Mountain Springs. At the time our county was updating the local land zoning and there was a push by people with an understanding of long term problems to try and concentrate new growth in areas that could better handle them. But this was undone when an endless series of lawsuits calling for yet more studies from people who opposed multi-residential housing buildings for ideological reasons drained the legal coffers.

Other examples include a series of lawsuits in San Francisco to stop highrise residential construction because it will spoil the view of people who live dozens of miles away and the efforts by NIMBY idiots in Beverly Hills to stop the new extension of the Purple Line of the LA Metro.

Long story short: California once upon a time enacted a series of laws to stop one particular sort of pollution; smog. This unfortunately forced the state into adopting a development pattern that greatly exacerbated other environmental issues. Efforts to remediate those issues are being hamstrung by the same shortsighted laws that forced the development pattern in the first place.

We should have ditched the laws decades ago and come up with a more sensible system to protect the environment but up until now groups like the Sierra Club still supported them.

 

[mhaze]

Travis just a reminder from an advocate of small government (me) -

When you start believe you can control other peoples' lives, don't bitch when the idiocy of people doing just that falls on you.

 

[Ziggurat]

In other words, you agree that such regulations are bad policy that harms the state, but because it also harms people that you disagree with it's better to keep it in place.

I'd say it's more a case of the best way to get a bad law abolished is to enforce it.

 

[Roboramma]

I'd say it's more a case of the best way to get a bad law abolished is to enforce it.

Well, that's sort of my point: this is an opportunity to abolish that law, if the environmentalists are on board to do so now.

 

[Roboramma]

Actually I do think that the general philosophy behind the policy is good.

It's just that the environmentalists have intentionally and maliciously abused those very same policies for decades in the courts.

If it's open to abuse it doesn't matter that the general philosophy is good: the outcome is poor. So the policy should either be changed or scrapped entirely.