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Forrest Fleischman

@forrestf.bsky.social
3.1K followers 5.8K following 1.3K posts

Associate professor of environmental policy at the University of Minnesota. Forest governance, Restoration Social Science, South Asia, Central America, Environmental justice, urban ecosystems, NEPA, homegardens, etc.

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Forrest Fleischman @forrestf.bsky.social · 15h
Perhaps worth pointing out that Klein and Thompson also have a chapter in their book about universities, and I think they understand universities about as well as the understand NEPA, which is to say, not at all.
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Forrest Fleischman @forrestf.bsky.social · 15h
This has been true about the whole debate. I read the Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson book, and while there are some broad philosophical points I agree with them about, they very clearly don't actually understand very much about NEPA.
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Forrest Fleischman @forrestf.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Carbon credits miss the forest for the trees, as it were, focusing on local scale incentives rather than the broad political-economic factors that shape those incentives.
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Forrest Fleischman @forrestf.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
This post illustrates what to me is the most fundamental problem with carbon credits. You can't sell carbon credits in electing Lula, but I've seen numerous analyses pointing to that as *the* crucial factor in the world's largest forest.
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Forrest Fleischman @forrestf.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I meant to say avoiding *losing* litigation - of course people can file a lawsuit about anything, but for an NGO to win a NEPA lawsuit against the feds there is a high bar.
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Forrest Fleischman @forrestf.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I don't disagree that NEPA compliance is complicated, but I also had a friend who spent his career doing NEPA lawsuits against the USFS and he said "you can only win if the agency lies" which suggests that avoiding litigation might not be as hard as you suggest.
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Forrest Fleischman @forrestf.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
And I wanted to study those differences and understand them, but I was never able to get any funding for this. Informally, when I talked to USFS staff, they would confirm my hypothesis, but I couldn't get down into alot of detail about it.
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Forrest Fleischman @forrestf.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Thanks! That's interesting. In my research we found that within the same agency there was alot of variation in how long similar-seeming projects took to get through environmental review. To me that suggested were differences in how these complexities were managed academic.oup.com/jof/article-...
academic.oup.com
US Forest Service Implementation of the National Environmental Policy Act: Fast, Variable, Rarely Litigated, and Declining
Abstract. AbstractThis paper draws on systematic data from the US Forest Service’s (USFS) Planning, Appeals and Litigation System to analyze how the agency
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Forrest Fleischman @forrestf.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Ultimately, this is why I find permitting reform discourses frustrating. The policy proposal on the table is to make environmental reviews less rigorous, and this is just one small piece of the problem - as you point out, inefficiencies are caused by many other aspects of the system.
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Forrest Fleischman @forrestf.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
For example, "state agency dysfunction" isn't a problem with permitting, its a problem of human organization/public administration. The solution isn't "let's get rid of laws" its "let's figure out how to organize our agency to be more functional"
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Forrest Fleischman @forrestf.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
These 2 framings address the same problem but lead to very different policy advice.
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Forrest Fleischman @forrestf.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
An alternative framing is "given that we have these restrictions, how can we operate more efficiently"
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Forrest Fleischman @forrestf.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
The framing of permit reform is "these things cost money so let's get rid of them." But they also have benefits, there are reasons why we have these laws.
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Forrest Fleischman @forrestf.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Yeah, I'm not saying they don't impose costs. What I'm trying to say is that there are multiple ways to frame the problem.
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Forrest Fleischman @forrestf.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I'd also recommend reading the OLA reports about the SWLRT because they're remarkably congruent with his arguments (although I'm pretty sure the folks in the OLA didn't read his book)
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Forrest Fleischman @forrestf.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I really recommend the book highly, its one of the best books I've read. sites.prh.com/how-big-thin...
sites.prh.com
How Big Things Get Done Book - Penguin Random House
The secrets to successfully planning and delivering ambitious, complex projects on any scale—from home renovation to space exploration—by the world's leading expert on megaprojects, Professor Bent Fly...
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Forrest Fleischman @forrestf.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I would summarize my understanding of his view of political "barriers" as being that you know that they exist and projects that come in fast & lower cost *plan* for those, whereas most projects wish them away and then they cause problems.
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Forrest Fleischman @forrestf.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
He points to other aspects of project planning that contribute to cost overruns and delays that span across projects that require permitting and those that don't (e.g. such as software procurement in private companies).
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Forrest Fleischman @forrestf.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
That was more or less my opinion until I read Bent Flybjerg's book, which convinced me that the problem was more complicated and deeper. He shows that most large projects (even ones that don't have to go through that kind of complicated politics) are subject to cost overruns and delays.
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Forrest Fleischman @forrestf.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
But if reform comes anyway, try to make sure exemptions exist for public transit and renewable energy, and limit exemptions for fossil fuel-oriented development, as well as those that harm vulnerable people and ecosystems.
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Forrest Fleischman @forrestf.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
In the present situation - with a Republican president with dementia, and a democratic party heavily beholden to tech donors - I don't anticipate that such a compromise would come off particularly well. Thus it probably makes sense for environmentalists to hold off on calls for reform.
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Forrest Fleischman @forrestf.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
My strategy would be to work to reduce paperwork burdens in exchange for substantive protections for the environment and vulnerable people, and avoiding reducing paperwork burdens for project types that are harmful.
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Forrest Fleischman @forrestf.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
So merely listing specific project types might not be enough, since we don't yet know what kinds of benefits and harms we might be seeing from future projects!
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Forrest Fleischman @forrestf.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
One of the advantages of environmental review is that it applies to everything, even things we don't know about yet. A few years ago I'd never really thought about data centers, now they are front and center in this debate.
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Forrest Fleischman @forrestf.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
If *I* were an environmentalist, I would be looking to trade off any reduction in environmental review with substantive and long-term protections for environmental values and vulnerable people (e.g. environmental injustices).
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Forrest Fleischman @forrestf.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
And the negative effects of all of these projects (including renewable energy projects - which *do* have negative impacts) are likely to continue to be concentrated on people and places with less power.
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Forrest Fleischman @forrestf.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Its pretty clear that whatever the political and economic powers that be want will be what is fast-tracked. So in some places this will mean transmission lines for clean energy (or clean energy production itself), and in some cases it will mean oil pipelines and data centers.
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Forrest Fleischman @forrestf.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Second, since we don't agree about what's good and bad, its pretty clear what will get fast tracked by permitting reform, and its not just "things we need for a clean energy future", which is a talking point I've heard alot.
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Forrest Fleischman @forrestf.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
whereas a re-framing of the problem as being one of conflicting future visions would enable us to start building better. But this is hard and requires addressing conflict and might not be the fastest way to get things done.
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Forrest Fleischman @forrestf.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
My point here is that if we treat "permitting difficulties" as the problem, we end up with the solution of decreasing environmental review while ignoring people's needs and future visions,
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Forrest Fleischman @forrestf.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
A "better" process might have built more consensus around a future in which currently dense and vibrant neighborhoods (Hennepin Avenue/Uptown) could get more dense and vibrant, rather than being stuck in the 1980s while the lightrail detours around them in a very expensive trench.
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Forrest Fleischman @forrestf.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Note that this choice wasn't made because of permitting difficulties - it was just a political choice.
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Forrest Fleischman @forrestf.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
In my example of the light rail project in Minneapolis, much of the cost overrun was driven by routing the project through a weird route which intended to avoid political opposition in some neighborhoods - but was also an inferior choice because it routed the light rail away from population density
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Forrest Fleischman @forrestf.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
If we return to the reasons why big projects get completed faster (Flybjerg's work, which I reference above), alot of this has to do with building political support & a unified vision of a better future into which the project fits.
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Forrest Fleischman @forrestf.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
So the debate about permitting reform is really a debate about whether we want more pipelines, transmission lines, and data centers - which happen to be things that alot of people don't want.
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Forrest Fleischman @forrestf.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
First, we don't actually agree about what is good or bad. Alot of the current enthusiasm for permitting reform is coming from people who want to build more pipelines, transmission lines, and data centers. These kinds of project generate *alot* of opposition.
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Forrest Fleischman @forrestf.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
There are really two problems with this that make me very concerned about the current "permitting reform" discourse.
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Forrest Fleischman @forrestf.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
In an ideal world, we could learn from 60 years of experience and build *better* processes that insure that harms are mitigated or prevented, while good things happen faster.
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Forrest Fleischman @forrestf.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
A different way of saying this is that the building coalition to weaken environemental review exists because environmental review is often *successful* at forcing change, and whether you view this as good or bad depends on whether you are benefitting or being harmed by a particular project.
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Forrest Fleischman @forrestf.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
But many of the concerns about permitting are self-interested - people from a particular industry are finding that environmental review slows *their* favorite kind of project down.
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Forrest Fleischman @forrestf.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Now granted - these are imperfect processes - for example, notice & comment is not particularly equitable or democratic.
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Forrest Fleischman @forrestf.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
4. Providing a "fire alarm" by which concerned citizens can raise concerns about harmful projects and lobby against them.
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Forrest Fleischman @forrestf.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
3. Providing a platform for government officials to evaluate their plans and consider alternatives.
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Forrest Fleischman @forrestf.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
2. Providing a platform for people to contribute to the planning process (i.e. through notice & comment)
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Forrest Fleischman @forrestf.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
1. Informing the public about what the government is doing and what environmental risks it involves, notably considering environmental justice and cumulative effects. If we're realistic "permitting reform" is also "decreasing scrutiny of the environmental harms of projects"
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Forrest Fleischman @forrestf.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Nonetheless, streamlining environmental review processes bring several risks. The current environmental review process serves several important political purposes which may be lost or diminished:
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Forrest Fleischman @forrestf.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Small is not nothing, but this is not a strategic re-thinking of administrative and funding processes, its a band-aid solution on everyone's favorite scape-goat which addresses one of a number of complex inter-related causes.
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Forrest Fleischman @forrestf.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
SO - the outcomes of a bill to increase the US's ability to build stuff that focuses only on permitting are likely to be pretty disappointing - it will make a difference but the difference will be small.
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Forrest Fleischman @forrestf.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Looking closer to home, a series of careful studies looking at cost and time overruns in the construction of a light rail project from Minneapolis out into the suburbs found lots of problems - and barely mentions the permitting process. www.auditor.leg.state.mn.us/ped/2023/swl...
auditor.leg.state.mn.us
Southwest Light Rail Transit Construction: Metropolitan Council Decision Making
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Forrest Fleischman @forrestf.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
If we want to do "big things" in the words of Flybjerg, we ought to pay attention to research that shows that getting big things done in a time and cost-effective manner requires well thought out planning, clearly defined goals, and a bunch of other factors that have nothing to do with permitting
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