Infrastructure Permitting and Friction in the Energy Transition

The ambitious energy transition envisioned by the Biden Administration in the series of enacted statutes, culminating in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and similarly moving forward in a number of states, attempts to walk a tightrope of changing essentially everyone's sources of energy seamlessly, without a premature failure of existing sources. The idea is similar to Al Gore's dream of “flipping a switch.” 1 However, as has been previously discussed in this column, there are a lot of headwinds in trying to achieve that goal.