alt Hacker NewsNYT has an op-ed today encouraging BAAJA, but all the comments are ripping it for bias. Notably it seems to strip away protections for historic sites and takes away rights from Indian tribes. Imagine running HVDC lines through tribal lands, over the Grand Canyon or other historic landmarks - things that would be prevented today that would be legal tomorrow.
I haven't read it, and I do support some level of expediency with grid buildout, but it sounds like it opens the door to ruining cultural landmarks, no prevention of abuse for fossil fuel purposes. Finally, and I mean this honestly: If the administration supports it, it probably is something worth pausing to consider.
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Pendulum has swung far too far towards historic preservation over the last half century.
There is too much protection for historic sites (most of which have trivial historical value) and Indian tribes have way too much power to extort money out of infrastructure projects.
> Imagine running HVDC lines through tribal lands
What if they only ran the transmission lines behind their eyesore casinos?
> Imagine running HVDC lines through tribal lands, over the Grand Canyon or other historic landmarks - things that would be prevented today that would be legal tomorrow.
There are plenty of other laws available to prevent various things from happening. The difference is that those need a government prosecutor to initiate a case rather than letting every member of the public file a nuisance lawsuit.
Which they would do in your "someone trying to run HVDC through the Grand Canyon" scenario and any other sufficiently egregious case, but not do when someone is just trying to build a boring wind farm on some boring land they own.