Aidan Mackenzie

North East Corridor Report How to Build High-Speed Rail on the Northeast Corridor We have most recently updated this report on 04/29/2025. Go to the PDF version (coming soon) Overview Our proposal’s goal is to establish a h...

The report is out, AMA.

How to Build High-Speed Rail on the Northeast Corridor

transitcosts.com/north-east-c...

DOI would do much better if they took their time to officially update their regs and implement better NEPA procedures.

Trying to rush around NEPA using vague authorities is probably just going to result in years of painful court battles
bsky.app/profile/aida...

www.doi.gov/pressrelease...

I'm extremely skeptical of the Department of Interior's attempt at using emergency authorities to speed NEPA reviews up to 28/14 days.

Ironically, DOI is relying on an authority that only ever existed in CEQ regs which are now gone... I expect courts will throw this idea out.

How the White House Can Reform NEPA | IFP Three steps the Council on Environmental Quality can take to fix our environmental permitting process.

And worse, even if they succeed in turning agency regs into guidance that will just give more power to courts to decide whether NEPA has been properly followed!

Reforming NEPA regs will take time and an empowered CEQ. ThomasHochman and I wrote more here ifp.org/potus-ceq-ne...

-Converting agency regs into "guidance" will only serve to confuse everyone including bureaucrats, project devs & courts.

-The process for converting current regs into guidance will get sued, requiring notice and comment and years of litigation... taking time away from reform

But now CEQ is directing agencies to convert the actual agency NEPA regs into guidance. This is significantly different than getting rid of CEQ reg authority (and bad):

-NEPA is a law and it must be followed — agency regs explain how to do that by setting standards, CatExs, etc...

But CEQ not having a chairman is undermining this process. The agency isn't empowered so they can't move forward with new regs.

-The initial EO set a 30 day deadline that was blown past before CEQ had any staff at all.
-Today's EO refers to a Chairman that still doesn't exist!

Repealing CEQ reg authority was a fine step — it softens some regulatory requirements and gives agencies flexibility to redo & improve how they implement NEPA.

But it was always a down payment: The real upside is figuring out how agencies can redo NEPA regs and make them better

The administration's NEPA reform strategy makes increasingly little sense.

-Multiple Executive Orders are directed at CEQ but there's STILL no CEQ Chairman so nothing is happening
-Repealing agency NEPA regs with no plan to replace them makes no sense.🧵
insideepa.com/daily-news/c...

A better measure would track pre-NEPA times, NOI to ROD timelines, and time to resolve litigation delays.

What we want to know is how long a project had to wait before beginning construction. (9/9)

Measuring NEPA timelines is very tricky because the process starts well before the NOI and ends well after the ROD

Reforms like the FRA are just squeezing the balloon and pushing delays from preparation to the pre-NEPA phase or post-NEPA litigation. (8/9)

What does the data show? Median time is slightly down, but average is steady:

-Median NOI to FEIS is 2.8 years, down from 3.2 in 2020
-Median NOI to ROD is 3.5, same as 2020.
-Average NOI to FEIS is 4.05, same as 4 in 2020.
-Average (NOI-ROD) is 4.4, same as 4.5 in 2020. (7/9)

If anything, even the average understates NEPA costs. Uncertainty has a chilling effect on investment. Companies can’t know ahead of time when their investments will be built or whether NEPA will be co-opted by political interests seeking to delay their project. (6/9)

Second, CEQ decided to use median time to complete an EIS instead of average time. They argue this better represents the typical EIS.

But median time under-represents the cost to developers in the tail of the graph: the potential to take 5-15 years creates painful uncertainty for developers. (5/9)

Projects cannot move forward until the agency issues a ROD, often several months after the FEIS.

If anything the ROD is too early, we want to know how long a project had to wait before beginning construction which can be years after the ROD if there’s a lawsuit. (4/9)

First CEQ chose to measure NEPA timelines from the Notice of Intent (NOI) to the Final EIS rather than NOI to the Record of Decision — the final decision to move forward with a project.

IMO this undercounts the delay in the NEPA process. (3/9)

CEQ headlines the statistic that median EIS timelines (2019-2024) shrank to 2.8 years, down from 3.2 years (2010-2018).

But these findings rely on some questionable methodological decisions. (2/9)

The Council on Environmental Quality claims to show reduced permitting timelines.

But the data suggests not much has changed.

Here's why NEPA data is tricky: 🧵 (1/9)

Climate advocates might feel hopeless with Pres-elect Trump returning to the WH.

They shouldn’t.

I wrote about how to make progress for NYT

1. Focus on innovation and industrial strategy
2. Be pragmatic about fossil fuels
3. Expand the interests that gain from decarbonization

it really breaks my brain that people will scream that climate change is an existential crisis but also that a system of endless litigation is good and fine

Why it takes a disaster to build fast If We Can Do It In Baltimore…

We’re builders. By @aidanmackenzie.bsky.social: www.thenewatlantis.com/publications...

Why it takes a disaster to build fast If We Can Do It In Baltimore…

A big thanks to The New Atlantis
for the opportunity! www.thenewatlantis.com/publications...

I-95’s repairs showed the benefits of centralized permitting authority.

The Baltimore Bridge shows the benefit of a quick and painless NEPA process.

Both can be applied to broader reforms (6/7).

Rebuilds don’t offer a direct blueprint to building faster — political unity for rebuilds won’t translate to new projects and regulatory exemptions would be improper.

But rebuilds do offer a glimpse at a better process… (5/7)

But even when speed is prioritized for disaster rebuilds the momentum rarely translates.

For example Governor Moore is already back to siding with NIMBYs against the Maryland Piedmont transmission line. (4/7)

Disaster rebuilds like I-95 and (hopefully) the Francis Scott Key Bridge are exciting because they smash the idea that these projects have to take years and decades.

If bickering over planning, permits and contracts is out of the way American construction still works! (3/7)

Disaster rebuilds benefit from political unity and legislative carve outs:

-Rebuilds get funding easily
-Everyone supports building fast
-States often have carve-outs to exempt rebuilds from permits & regs
-Laws like NEPA usually don’t apply to rebuilds. (2/7)

America can still build fast! …but only after disasters.

In my piece for The New Atlantis (now unpaywalled) I look at the Baltimore Bridge rebuild and ask why we can’t build fast all the time.

Disaster rebuilds offer some lessons for a better infrastructure process. 🧵 (1/7)