… the central dilemma of contemporary progressive politics: Left-of-center elites really want to address the problem of climate change, but working class voters do not want to bear localized economic costs for global benefits.

The problem, though, is that if there’s no depression, we don’t need a New Deal.

Paths to green growth

While voters don’t want to pay a big economic price for emissions reduction, there are emissions-reducing steps we could take that would have negative economic costs:

• Change historic preservation rules so you can install rooftop solar panels
• Change regulations to make it easier to build interregional transmission lines
• Pass something like the Manchin-Barrasso permitting reform bill
• Fix the NRC so it starts licensing new reactors again and evaluates nuclear projects using a comprehensive cost-benefit framework
• Make it easier to do geothermal drilling on public lands
• Make it easier to drill Class VI wells for carbon storage
• Stop saddling clean energy projects with “everything bagel” requirements around labor and community benefits and just let people build