Alex Epstein
speaker
366 appearances
2 recordings
2 series
first heard Jan 2025
last heard 28 Apr
Alex Epstein’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Apr 2026 with 1.
Appearances
So for example, if you say, hey, Alex AI, how do we get to net zero by 2050 as quickly as possible? It doesn't just try to manufacture an answer. It says, would Alex agree that that's the right goal? Well, actually, I disagree. I don't think this is the right goal.
All right, let's go back to these five points. So in terms of liberating, so let's make sure to couple at least one of the big things for this. So I would say with the liberating domestic development, one of the key things we need to do is address what's called NEPA. I don't know if you've heard this term. You might have heard it. It's National Environmental Policy Act.
So this is one of the early environmental laws. And NEPA is the thing, and I forget what the Canadian equivalent is. I think you just passed a new version of this that's nuts. But it's basically, it's a duplicative review process. That's what NEPA is.
So it basically says, like, any agency that does anything, it has to also go through an additional review for its quote-unquote environmental impacts or impacts on the human environment. I mean, it's worded something like any significant impact on the human environment. And significant is not defined. Environment isn't defined.
So what it means is basically and then it has to do with federal actions. So it's like a major federal action. But what is a federal action? Is it anything where federal law applies? So originally it was supposed to be, OK, the federal government is building like a giant bridge, you know, that's a mile long or something like that.
is it going to cause any kind of major damage or something like that? And you write like a 10-page report. Now it's become every project imaginable is covered, and it can take 10 years. And one of the major mechanisms is judges can sue. So NEPA has no...
official authority to stop anything it's just a review thing but you people can sue activist groups can sue and they can they can say you didn't you left out this bird on your deeper review right so you throw it back and then the judge says yeah you have to do so in practice this is the thing which why we can't build any roads why everything takes forever why mine you know takes something like 15 years to permit
I'll have to look now. When I tried it a year ago, it was horrible. But it didn't have search back then. It didn't have a sophisticated processing. So with the search, it would be... It's a good thing I'll do it right after this.
And everything else is going to sort of... Now, interestingly, with this kind of thing... it's often very efficient to just talk to a very smart lawyer. So, like, lawyers that we pay, like, at the top end, it's, like, I think over $1,800 an hour. It's like, we'll pay lawyers.
And it's worth it because you can just ask them, like, an expert in NEPA or an expert in electricity, like, what really needs to change? Because you often find that the thing people talk about isn't the thing that really matters.
So, with NEPA, some of the things are, like, one of the big issues is, like, one of the big kinds of solutions is you can what's called limit NEPA to agency discretion. So basically the agency can do the NEPA review, but it basically decides, okay, we've done the review and it can't be challenged, like something like that. And it's fine because it's the agency's responsibility to review the thing.
You don't need to put everything in double jeopardy and just take forever and have outside people allowed to question your review. And basically if it's- That just makes it impossible. Yeah, that's what it is. So that's this kind of thing where when politicians will talk about NEPA, they'll often say something like, let's limit the length of the process, right?
Let's limit an environmental impact statement to two years or one year, or what's called an environmental assessment to a smaller amount of time. But they don't fully get that you can still have infinite litigation on that. So even if you set a shot clock, if you have infinite ability to challenge it. So that's the kind of example where, and there's like specific-
Okay, so that's the highest point for liberating defensive development is really limiting NEPA's ability to delay projects, but addressing the real core substance.
Yeah, but it's the ultimate one. So if you're talking about Doge, you've got to go after NEPA.
Yes, so the ending preferences for unreliable electricity. So there's a lot of interesting ones here. I would say the most important thing is that FERC, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, has to become laser-focused on reliability.
Which it hasn't done. And so one of the major... So right now it's focused on things like climate, right? So I review a project and I'll say, is this project climate friendly? Now, let me ask you, if you're approving a natural gas pipeline, how the hell can you tell... Climate is a global issue, and this is going to be de minimis. How do you decide, is it going to add more?
Like, it's not its job at all. It has no statutory right to discuss that kind of thing. But it's threatening all sorts of projects on the grounds of, I think this will lead to slightly more greenhouse gases in the world or slightly less. Like, so it needs to get out of that. So that's one thing is getting out of this whole set of issues. So part of that is the focus. Right. So is your point there—
Well, that's actually, you're anticipating what I was going to say next. So one thing is just get non-electricity concerns out of the mix, except for safety. Like it has a mandate of safety. Like if you know your power lines are endangering people and this kind of thing. But FERC should have nothing to do with climate or anything like this.
um so and this is going to be related to the climate thing we have to get rid of the whole of government climate agenda but then to your point yeah so it means exclusively focusing on reliability and cost and also safety but then it also means it it needs to do new things and in particular it needs to have some sort of national reliability standards which it doesn't have and this there's a lot of complexity as to why because technically FERC is not allowed to regulate what's called uh
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