BOSTON GLOBE • April 12, 2023
Modern American environmental policy is rooted in regulation beginning in the 1970s. A second era took shape in the 1990s and 2000s amid growing efforts to combat climate change. Rather than regulating environmental problems, the new approach was to subsidize environmental solutions. But in order for the promise of the second era to be fully realized, we may have to revisit the assumptions of the first one. We may now find ourselves having to deregulate. The American regulatory state originally envisioned to protect the environment now regularly obstructs the large-scale demonstration, licensing, and deployment of environmental solutions today. ~ Alex Trembath and Seaver Wang, Breakthrough Institute