The assurgent Democratic Socialists of America, fresh off their underdog primary victories in New York City and Colorado, felt emboldened enough to release their policy perspectives. The DSA asks readers to “imagine” a United States without capitalism, and frankly speaking, this policy guide reads like it was written by a high school student running for class president; all that’s missing is the promise to end homework. And that’s probably an insult to the high school student.
The policy document includes all types of lunacy, ranging from contradictory statements about public safety to calls that would likely result in the abolishment of the U.S. Constitution as currently written. FYSA for my socialist pals, read up on Constitution, as any attempt to “abolish the Senate,” would need the unanimous consent of all 50 states.
And that brings us to the DSA’s perspective on energy, and unsurprisingly, the document cites the Green New Deal. The same Green New Deal that Democrats and progressives have largely side stepped in favor of the cause of affordability, since the Green New Deal and its policies have made things more expensive, not less.
Instead of debating the feasibility of the Green New Deal again, I offer these questions about energy issues for the policy geniuses within the DSA.
- How will DSA policies manage the high levels of pollution needed to mine, extract, and process rare earth elements commonly found in electric cars, solar panels, and other renewable energy sources and infrastructure?
- Given that the U.S. is currently in over $39 trillion in debt, how is the nation going to fund this massive investment into “energy and transit infrastructure?” Mind you, the cost of such a buildout would likely cost billions of dollars, and even the radical ideas of defunding the entirety of the Defense Department or crossing the Rubicon to fully confiscate of all U.S. billionaires and trillionaire’s wealth on paper would be unlikely to sustain such an investment over time given other spending priorities.
- How do you plan to create the infrastructure needed for this build out given that energy-intensive industries (steel, cement, chemicals, aviation) currently lack commercially viable non-fossil fuel and chemical alternatives at scale?
- How are you going to navigate already broken federal permitting system to build all this new infrastructure, especially when people are increasingly opposed to new energy and transmission infrastructure being built where they live? (For example, Maine localities have consistently voted against several renewable energy projects over the last few years)
- Is dispatchable nuclear energy going to be the replacement for dispatchable fossil fuel energy generation or is the plan to replace everything with wind and solar and cross your fingers and hope it works nationwide?
- How does your “imaginative” policies plan to address the cost of energy and affordability generally? Or is it just the vague claim of making the rich pay their fair share over and over again?
Typically, I would be excited at the prospect of a debate on energy policies given the differences in opinion. But, such a debate is not coming because the folks at the DSA are unserious children LARPing as policy professionals. So, let me offer a more plausible, bipartisan solution to the nation’s energy woes: permitting reform.
Right now, the average energy project takes four to five years to just get approved by regulators, and that’s before construction and interconnection into the grid that allows the energy to flow. Simple legislative fixes, such as implementing hard deadlines for agencies to complete reviews, using consistent and objective standards for review, and ensuring any litigation is for direct harm, not proposed harm, would vastly reduce the time, and cost, to bring new energy projects online, thus lowering the cost of energy across the board. So, instead of “imagining” an impossible fairy tale, why not enact commonsense reforms that actually can make Americans’ lives better.
James Morrone is a Energy Policy Analyst at Americans for Prosperity.
