Environmentalists are suing us out of addressing climate change

Despite a bipartisan permitting bill sailing through committee last month, a coalition of extreme environmental groups is digging in its heels to preserve our labyrinth of regulations preventing American energy dominance.

For those of us working in the environmental space, this isn’t a surprise. Even though many environmental leaders in the Senate and climate-focused environmental groups support the bill, extreme environmental groups are once again opposing reforms needed to build new energy infrastructure. Their outdated approach ignores the fact that addressing climate change and meeting our energy demands will require rapidly building out clean-energy infrastructure.

The Manchin-Barrasso proposal is the result of more than a year of bipartisan negotiations, which is clearly demonstrated through the content of the bill. A truly all-of-the-above approach, this bill would ease permitting processes for both clean and traditional energy sources, but clean energy advocates agree that the climate benefits far outweigh any fossil fuel compromises.

Moreover, recent data shows the effect that our current permitting process is having on our ability to build any kind of energy project. Specifically, a report by the pro-growth environmentalists at The Breakthrough Institute breaks down how frivolous lawsuits are delaying the deployment of critical projects that would lower emissions and conserve our environment. 

The culprits? Some of the very environmental organizations that claim they’re fighting to address climate change. In fact, researchers found that NGOs instigated more than 70 percent of legal challenges against forest management projects, public land management projects and energy projects. A shocking 80 percent of these lawsuits eventually fail, meaning that these groups only succeed in delaying, not stopping, important projects and adding millions in unnecessary costs. 

Forest management projects were the most litigated out of any other category of project in this research, demonstrating inconsistent stances on environmental protection. In 2020, wildfires in California essentially erased any progress on emissions reductions in the energy sector. Active forest management practices, which the state government of California has routinely rejected, would help reduce the severity of these fires. This includes forest thinning and preventative burns, which have been branded as a “scam” by these groups, who, again, insist on ignoring trade-offs for robust, emissions-reducing action.

Energy projects, too, fall victim to superfluous lawsuits. Even clean energy projects are delayed by unnecessary and unsuccessful litigation. In fact, clean energy production accounted for 33 percent of energy-related lawsuits, whereas fossil fuel extraction accounted for only 22 percent. Litigation, on average, delays the deployment of energy projects by nearly four years, time we can’t afford if we want to reduce emissions quickly and effectively. 

Fortunately, leaders in both political parties, clean energy advocates and reasonable environmentalists agree that we need robust permitting reform to address climate change on a reasonable timeline. The Manchin-Barrasso bill recognizes the need for limits to judicial review on development and energy projects because the current costs and delays are untenable for our country.

It would be one thing if necessary litigation from concerned citizens targeted and stopped harmful projects, but instead, the practice has evolved to become a pointless virtue signal. While the Senate package begins to take on this issue, due to committee jurisdiction issues, we will need further bipartisan coordination to fully solve the problem. 

Those who advocate for emissions reductions must understand that these goals will not be met by simply opposing everything. Clean energy deployment and active forest management – both crucial climate solutions – will not fall out of the sky without changes to the laws that only stop development. Environmentalists should work to earn community support for clean energy where it could be most effective, rather than pursuing litigation that is doomed to fail.

Emily Domenech is the co-chair of America Builds, a coalition of companies advocating for permitting reform. Danielle Butcher Franz is the CEO of the American Conservation Coalition, the largest grassroots conservative environmental organization in the country.