Why can’t government build big public works projects any more? Rachel Maddow, picture in front of Hoover Dam, would have you think it’s because greedy rich Republicans won’t pony up enough money.
The actual problem is the gauntlet of environmental reviews and lawsuits that any project must go through before even getting started. That’s the message of Glenn (Instapundit) Reynolds in this Instapundit blogpost.
He notes that in the 1930s the Tennessee Valley Authority “had its first dam filled within 18 months of the TVA Act’s passage.” In contrast the February 2009 stimulus package is delaying rather than speeding up big projects, as civil engineer Kevin Long explains in an email to Reynolds:
“The process now takes four to six years for even a small project to go through, so when everyone moved projects up to qualify for funding through ARRA [the stimulus package], it left a gap where no new projects are expected for a few years.”
Reynolds also links to a Powerline blogpost by my American Enterprise Institute colleague Steven Hayward, which contrasts what Americans were able to do in the 1930s with what they’re able to do today.
“In the old days, when the U.S. built things relatively quickly like Hoover Dam or the Golden Gate Bridge, someone actually got to make decisions. Today, I suspect the slightly authoritarian figures like Robert Moses or Frederick Law Olmstead would be arrested for their manner of public administration, or have their designs slowed down and corrupted by ‘public input’ and review processes that we wouldn’t have Central Park. More likely we’d have 50 Zuccotti Parks scattered around New York City.”
We’ve exalted process over production to the point that, as President Obama had to admit, almost nothing is shovel-ready any more. Someone needs to figure out how we can change our environmental laws to provide a sensible balance that allows big projects to be built once again.
