Opinion/Your Turn: New England's clean energy goals need an audible to regain its lead

Renewable energy and national championships, that’s what New England does.

Asked in March for something to inspire optimism in the beleaguered New England Patriots fanbase, Bill Belichick bluntly responded, “the last 25 years.” He later backtracked but, while the Celtics buy us time before we lament the middling Sox and Pats, let’s take heed.

The most insightful teaching moment of Belichick’s tenure may have come on Nov. 3, 2003. Down a point to the Denver Broncos, Belichick ordered a late-fourth quarter deliberate safety to reset with improved field position. The Patriots then forced a three-and-out, took the ball back, and scored, winning 30-26, continuing their winning streak through a second Super Bowl title three months later.

The insight we can take from the Patriots’ laconic head coach: to take a step forward, sometimes you have to take what looks like a step back. This aptly applies to climate change, and Massachusetts’ desperate sprint to decarbonize our power grid by 2030.

Amid the emergence of the Patriots’ dynasty, New England also took an early lead in our nation’s race for clean energy, erecting wind turbines and solar panels, joining the Kyoto Protocol, and moving to protect fisheries, rivers, and forests. A school project taped to the wall of my high school corridor detailed a forthcoming clean energy megaproject — Cape Wind, purported to be the first Massachusetts offshore wind farm, was “in development.” On death row, more like.

To date, New England has only five operating offshore wind turbines off Block Island (Vineyard Wind will hopefully change that this year). Financing is the most recent scapegoat for the slow progress, with interest rates and steel costs skyrocketing after Russia invaded Ukraine. But the past year wouldn’t matter had many projects been built already. The real reason, builders and bureaucrats all know, is a paralyzing gauntlet of local, state, and federal permitting obstacles and litigation landmines that let New England’s wealthiest residents endlessly sue to stop these vital projects, suggesting sometimes real, but sometimes pyrrhic environmental concerns like digging up beach sand for an electric cable somehow outweigh gigawatts of clean electric power and their displacement of carbon emissions.

Cape Wind, murdered by paperwork, may be the rule, not the exception.

Meanwhile, Canada’s clean hydropower, which could remove 20% of New England’s electric power carbon emissions overnight, idles at our northern border, while we burn natural gas from Nantucket to Sunday River. Irrational tree-huggers and NIMBYs (Not In My BackYard), backed by bad-faith local fossil fuel interests, have fought tooth and nail to save a few hundred pines instead. Talk about losing the forest for the trees. Like our sports teams, New England’s clean energy dominance is fading.

Hope springs eternal. Washington, D.C., may finally be addressing the root of the problem. Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate have each proposed legislation to streamline and simplify the way we permit new energy infrastructure. House Republicans are leading the way, having passed H.R. 1, the Lower Energy Costs Act. Despite the lack of broad bipartisan support for this particular iteration of permitting reform legislation, there’s hope Democrats and Republicans can work toward a reasonable, balanced compromise that would accelerate decarbonization and reduce energy costs for every American.

Environmentalists fear permitting and litigation reforms will erode laws they’ve long used to block fossil fuel infrastructure. But clearly, those superfluously bureaucratic rules go both ways, blocking wind turbines and solar panels too, and it’s impossible to even remotely approach any of our climate goals without immediate reform. Fortunately, with new subsidies thanks to the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, the free market now favors clean energy.

Like Coach Belichick trusted his future offense to finish the comeback, so must we trust ourselves to zero out emissions in the 2030s — after a clean energy construction boom makes it economically possible. Remember, it’s OK to let your opponents score if it means you can score more.

Whether or not Massachusetts’ congressional delegation watched that cold November night comeback win 20 years ago, they should take optimism from it, join with pragmatic Democrats in negotiating real permitting reform with their Republican colleagues, reset the game and show them that New England still knows how to win.

Greg Nasif is a former Falmouth resident and the Director of Public Affairs with Humanity Forward, a national bipartisan advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C.

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This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Opinion: New England must streamline clean energy permit process