I used to be a permitting attorney. My wife is presently a prominent permitting attorney who works on linear transmission corridor projects at a large firm. Unless we change the permitting process, and several federal environmental laws in particular, we will never realize even a fraction of the capacity required to hit our renewables goals. We can’t get a single new line across the cascades in Oregon, much less the dozens that will be required. Tidal energy faces the same issues vis-à-vis the load centers on the other side of the coast range.
There will probably be a lot of pressure to change the permitting process in the near future. Power outages, along with rising prices, are one of the events that most reliably get politicians thrown out of office.
