Environmentalists are suing us out of addressing climate change

Despite a bipartisan permitting bill sailing through committee last month, a coalition of extreme environmental groups is digging in its heels to preserve our labyrinth of regulations preventing American energy dominance.

For those of us working in the environmental space, this isn’t a surprise. Even though many environmental leaders in the Senate and climate-focused environmental groups support the bill, extreme environmental groups are once again opposing reforms needed to build new energy infrastructure. Their outdated approach ignores the fact that addressing climate change and meeting our energy demands will require rapidly building out clean-energy infrastructure.

The Manchin-Barrasso proposal is the result of more than a year of bipartisan negotiations, which is clearly demonstrated through the content of the bill. A truly all-of-the-above approach, this bill would ease permitting processes for both clean and traditional energy sources, but clean energy advocates agree that the climate benefits far outweigh any fossil fuel compromises.

The culprits? Some of the very environmental organizations that claim they’re fighting to address climate change. In fact, researchers found that NGOs instigated more than 70 percent of legal challenges against forest management projects, public land management projects and energy projects. A shocking 80 percent of these lawsuits eventually fail, meaning that these groups only succeed in delaying, not stopping, important projects and adding millions in unnecessary costs.

Those who advocate for emissions reductions must understand that these goals will not be met by simply opposing everything. Clean energy deployment and active forest management – both crucial climate solutions – will not fall out of the sky without changes to the laws that only stop development. Environmentalists should work to earn community support for clean energy where it could be most effective, rather than pursuing litigation that is doomed to fail.