It is not just deep state conspiracy theorists or the president’s henchmen who dislike government these days. Even on the left, there is mounting frustration with the ways in which bureaucracy proves an impediment to building things the country very much needs, like clean energy infrastructure and housing. Environmental review processes, administrative requirements for public participation, protracted and nitpicky judicial review, labor and domestic content requirements, and zoning and siting restrictions all slow down and sometimes outright destroy worthwhile projects. (See Alan Ehrenhalt’s review of Why Nothing Works, and Zephyr Teachout’s review of Abundance.)
by Sandeep Vaheesan
University of Chicago Press, 400 pp.
The exigency of the climate crisis lends these complaints some force, at least when they align with empirics rather than…
