“The most significant policy change—or, perhaps, the least insignificant—is new limits on how long mandatory National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) reviews can take. The Fiscal Responsibility Act incorporated some changes first proposed by the Trump administration’s Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) in 2020 to limit NEPA environmental reviews to no more than two years and the resulting environmental impact statements to no more than 150 pages.
That’s a welcome change. As part of the process that originally produced those suggestions, the CEQ found that the average environmental impact study is 661 pages and typically takes more than four years to complete. Time is money, and all those delays are expensive. In its report, the CEQ cited a study, by the nonpartisan reform coalition Common Good, estimating that “the cost of a 6–year delay in starting construction on public projects costs the nation over $3.9 trillion, including the cost of prolonged inefficiencies and avoidable pollution,” as Reason’s Ron Bailey reported at the time.
The environmental impact of major infrastructure projects is important to consider, but NEPA has devolved into a tool often wielded by opponents of development rather than sincere concern for the plight of the sage grouse. Placing limits on how long NEPA can delay a building project makes a lot of sense.
The NEPA tweaks included in the Fiscal Responsibility Act will “slightly improve the process,” says Stapp, “but the biggest problem—judicial review—was left untouched.”
Indeed, the Fiscal Responsibility Act’s limits on NEPA reviews don’t apply to the often-inevitable litigation that spirals out from them. Without that component, the new rules have a giant loophole—one that opponents of new construction will continue using to delay and drive up costs.”
“Legislatures in three states—Washington, Montana, and Vermont—passed bills legalizing at least duplexes on almost all residential land. That makes six states that have now eliminated single-family-only zoning.
Washington and Montana also passed a long list of complementary reforms, including bills in both states that streamline housing approvals and let homeowners add accessory dwelling units (ADUs) to their properties.
On the other hand, ambitious omnibus bills that tried to squeeze through most of the YIMBY agenda in one fell swoop failed in Colorado, Arizona, and, most dramatically, New York.
The mixed results are the product of a maturing YIMBY movement that’s willing to take more risks and which has a higher threshold for success, says Salim Furth, a senior research fellow at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center.
“The Overton window really moved on what states can do and our standards were higher for what constitutes a win,” he tells Reason. “We’re looking for bills that would obviously, immediately release a lot of construction activity.””
“the Maine measure would institute what’s known as “asymmetrical criminalization” or the “Nordic Model” of prostitution laws, a scheme criminalizing people who pay for sex but not totally criminalizing those who sell it. This model has become popular in parts of Europe and among certain strains of U.S. feminists.
But keeping sex work customers criminalized keeps in place many of the harms of total criminalization. The sex industry must still operate underground, which makes it more difficult for sex workers to work safely and independently. Sex workers are still barred from advertising their services. Customers are still reluctant to be screened. And cops still spend time ferreting out and punishing people for consensual sex instead of focusing on sex crimes where someone is actually being victimized.
A recent study of prostitution laws in European countries found full decriminalization or legalization of prostitution linked to lower rape rates, while countries that instituted the Nordic model during the study period saw their rates of sexual violence go up.”
“The HPV vaccine has been around for almost two decades and could spare thousands of people from developing cervical and oral cancer — so mandating it for schoolchildren once seemed an easy call for Democrats in deep-blue California.
But a bill to do just that has been watered down beyond recognition in one of the most liberal states in the U.S., a victim of a homegrown anti-vaccine movement that has become more organized and more successful since the pandemic.”
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“Across the country, blue-state policymakers have nearly given up trying to create new vaccine policy and are now simply trying to hold the line on a decade’s worth of public health gains. Attempts to add required vaccines for school kids this year sputtered in Wisconsin, California and Massachusetts, a stunning reversal after a successful push to tighten exemptions for mandated childhood vaccines.”
“A federal judge delivered a stinging rebuke to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Republican-controlled Legislature over rules and a new state law that banned minors from receiving “puberty blockers” and other types of gender-affirming care.
U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle on Tuesday blocked the state from applying the ban to three minors whose parents are part of an ongoing lawsuit, saying they would “suffer irreparable harm” if they were not allowed to continue access to hormones and other types of treatment.”
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“The American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Medical Association support gender-affirming care for adults and adolescents. But medical experts said gender-affirming care for children rarely, if ever, includes surgery. Instead, doctors are more likely to recommend counseling, social transitioning and hormone replacement therapy.”