SouthernWorldwide.com – For too long, the conversation surrounding permitting reform has been largely confined to the intricate world of Washington D.C. insiders. This has led to endless discussions about transmission lines, pipelines, lawsuits, and administrative procedures.
Policymakers seem to be fixated on minor details, overlooking the broader picture and the significant implications. The stakes involved are far greater than simply connecting a natural gas plant, wind farm, or data center to the national grid.
The most crucial reason for undertaking permitting reform is to bolster the U.S. defense industrial base. This must be achieved with the speed, scale, and cost-efficiency necessary to deter a major conflict with China, and to ensure a swift victory should deterrence fail.
This imperative necessitates a sustained U.S. capability to surpass adversaries in the production of weapons, ships, munitions, and essential materials. However, for over two decades, America’s national security and economic policies, coupled with stifling environmental review processes, have significantly weakened domestic manufacturing.
This has largely resulted in the transfer of our defense-related industrial capabilities and control over global supply chains to China. The consequences of this shift are stark and evident.
China now dominates global manufacturing, particularly in industries that are indispensable to national defense. Its steel production is approximately 12 times greater than that of the United States. In shipbuilding, China possesses a capacity roughly 230 times that of the U.S.
A single major Chinese shipyard can produce more than the entire U.S. commercial shipbuilding industry combined. This alarming disparity has persisted for far too long, with American policymakers, from both parties, appearing to be complacent on this critical issue.
Recent global conflicts have provided sobering previews of how profoundly these industrial disparities can matter in times of war. In Ukraine, the production of U.S. and allied munitions has struggled to meet the escalating demand.
For instance, America managed to increase its output of 155mm artillery shells from about 14,000 per month to approximately 40,000. This figure falls significantly short of Ukraine’s estimated monthly needs of 150,000–200,000 shells, exposing the fragility of just-in-time supply chains.
Similar constraints are apparent in meeting our own defense requirements and supporting Israel against Iranian-backed threats. Decades of peacetime atrophy—characterized by dormant production lines, the retirement of skilled workers, reliance on overseas manufacturing, and regulatory bottlenecks—have left the U.S. defense industrial base ill-equipped for sustained, high-intensity conflict.
History serves as a potent reminder of the dangers of underestimating industrial power. During World War II, Nazi Germany developed formidable new technologies, including the Me 262 jet fighter, V-2 ballistic missiles, and advanced tanks.
These “wonder weapons” initially stunned Allied forces on the battlefield. However, it was America’s overwhelming manufacturing juggernaut that ultimately proved decisive. By mobilizing factories across the heartland, the United States produced nearly 300,000 aircraft, 86,000 tanks, and thousands of ships, vastly outproducing the combined might of the Axis powers.
Similarly, during the Civil War, 90 percent of the nation’s manufacturing economy was concentrated in the North. The North produced 20 times more pig iron and 32 times more firearms than the South, which remained primarily an agrarian economy.
Perhaps a more ominous lesson can be drawn from the North’s embrace of mechanization, which allowed for threshing to be completed 12 times faster than with manual labor. Today’s parallel can be seen in Artificial Intelligence (AI).
The great power that dominates AI will likely gain a decisive advantage in any future conflict, much like the North did by leveraging mechanization against the South’s reliance on manual labor. Both mechanization and AI require reliable, dispatchable power sources to deliver their economic and industrial benefits.
Currently, China enjoys the strategic advantage that America once held. China’s defense industrial base and supporting infrastructure can more readily transition to a wartime footing, significantly increasing the output of ships, munitions, and materials with minimal bureaucratic or legal impediments.
Reversing America’s decline in the defense industrial sector requires more than just minor adjustments to administrative processes, increasing the number of permitting staff, or altering deadlines for filing lawsuits. It demands a fundamental shift in the government’s mindset regarding how and why it places so many obstacles in the path of the rapid expansion and rebuilding of our defense industrial base.
Essential infrastructure, including roads, bridges, ports, rail networks, power generation and delivery systems, and computing infrastructure, forms the bedrock of industrial capacity. Factories cannot operate efficiently without affordable and reliable power.
Mines and processing facilities for critical materials—vital for munitions, electronics, and advanced weaponry—struggle to secure funding and achieve necessary scale amidst regulatory paralysis. Without this complex industrial ecosystem, we risk strategic vulnerability that no amount of technological innovation can fully counteract.
American spirit and ingenuity are undeniable assets, but they cannot conjure raw materials and weapons systems out of thin air when supply chains falter and projects languish in endless reviews. Congress and the administration must elevate permitting modernization to the status of a core national security priority.
The most critical element in this equation is time. Time translates directly to power; China builds its infrastructure three times faster than the United States. Time also represents money; China’s defense output costs a fraction of ours.
Every year that a U.S. defense infrastructure project is held up in permitting adds 10-20% to its final cost. Typical delays exceeding five years can result in projects costing two or three times more than necessary.
Eliminating these delays would not only unleash defense production with the speed and scale required to maintain peace but would also deliver these capabilities while saving hundreds of billions of dollars in defense spending.
To achieve this objective, Congress and the states must work collaboratively across the aisle. They need to legislatively approve the maintenance, replacement, and new construction of defense industrial supply chains, while precluding any further environmental review, permitting, or judicial review of such processes.
I have had the opportunity to work with dedicated Democrats such as Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), and John Hickenlooper (D-CO) to build consensus. I extend my sincere thanks and trust to them.
We are all committed to ensuring environmental protection and reaffirming that these industries must comply with all specified environmental performance requirements. They will remain subject to the full spectrum of legal requirements for monitoring, reporting, inspection, enforcement, citizen suits, judicial review, and punitive civil, criminal, and damages liability for any noncompliance.
There is ample bipartisan precedent for this approach, which has long been established in non-security-related laws governing areas such as health and safety, financial transactions, and border construction. Furthermore, recent targeted federal and state laws have waived permitting requirements for public housing, fracking, pipelines, and chip manufacturing plants.
The urgency to address the challenges of this permitting reform “forest” is undeniable. America’s ability to deter conflict, or to prevail if deterrence fails, hinges upon American industrial might. Permitting reform represents the essential first step toward rebuilding this crucial strength.
The era of timid measures and insider debates is now firmly in the past.
