Can Kamala Harris cut red tape on construction?

Mr. Caro’s book depicted Moses (1888-1981), who headed the Triborough Bridge Authority and other agencies, as running roughshod over local communities to revolutionize auto travel in and around New York City. The book held Moses responsible for destroying entire neighborhoods in the Bronx during the construction of the Cross Bronx Expressway, triggering economic and social decline that took generations to recover.

“The Power Broker" helped spark a movement to expand local participation in decisions about significant public and private projects. In the following decades, government agencies at every level developed permitting procedures that considered environmental laws and regulations, historic preservation, effects on parking and small businesses, the possible presence of Native American sacred sites and other factors. The range of consultation has expanded dramatically, as have opportunities for procedural appeals and litigation.

The downside of this movement has become clear in recent years. As Ms. Harris observed in her Pittsburgh speech, “in America, it takes too long and it costs too much to build." She elaborated: “Whether it’s a new housing development, a new factory or a new bridge, projects take too long to go from concept to reality." It wasn’t always this way, she said. The Empire State Building was built in little more than a year, and the Pentagon took 16 months. Today’s building delays undermine both our economic competitiveness and our national defense, she concluded: “China is not moving slowly. . . . And we can’t afford to, either."

Ms. Harris is right. The American Clean Power Association, which represents clean-energy companies, reports that on average it takes 4½ years for a project to go through the required National Environmental Policy Act review process. For projects involving energy transmission, it takes even longer: 6½ years. States and localities added their own layers of complexity to an already cumbersome federal approval process. In many cases, construction can’t begin until every review has been completed. These delays often result in higher costs on labor, materials and financing. On private projects, it hurts businesses. On public projects, it hurts taxpayers.

Some of the delay is needless. Germany and Canada, which have strict environmental laws and building codes similar to those in the U.S., have enacted administrative reforms that have lowered average project approval times to two years or less. These reforms haven’t made reviews less rigorous. Instead, they’ve consolidated the process, concentrating most scoping and review decisions under the leadership of a single agency. This ensures the timely completion reviews and enables quick decisions.

In her speech, Ms. Harris said she would work with Congress, workers, businesses, states, local leaders and community groups to “reform permitting" and “get things moving faster." If she’s serious, she must do more than nibble around the edges. Major structural changes are essential.

If Ms. Harris becomes president, she should—as a first step—throw her support behind the Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024, co-sponsored by Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Joe Manchin and ranking Republican John Barrasso. The legislation would accelerate the federal authorization process for energy projects by establishing strict timelines for each component of the process—without limiting existing rights to seek judicial review. Ms. Harris could extend this model beyond the energy sector to cover a broader range of federal permits.

Drawing on the German and Canadian models, a President Harris should also back the establishment of a new agency whose purpose would be to coordinate and streamline the federal project authorization process. Still, better coordination in Washington would do little if construction reviews continued to suffer lengthy delays. Ms. Harris should consider using federal carrots and sticks to accelerate state and local project reviews. The flow of infrastructure funds, for example, could be made contingent on expedited reviews at all levels.

Trust in government is near a record low, partly because officials make promises on which they fail to deliver. The painfully slow rollout of expanded broadband coverage in rural areas is a recent example. Reforms that restore our country’s capacity to build quickly would help restore trust—and accelerate economic growth.