Assistant Professor @JohnsHopkinsSGP. Previously @NiskanenCenter, @OMBPress_46, @SenBlumenthal, and @federalreserve.
Joined August 2011
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Alex Mechanick retweeted
Resources For the Future has released its modeling on the Senate permitting bill.
Top findings:
- Increase transmission capacity by 30% by 2041
- Would facilitate 60GW of clean energy in 2028
- Reduce carbon emissions by 1.8 gigatonnes through 2041
rff.org/publications/issue-b…
Alex Mechanick retweeted
Stuck between tax hikes (Scylla) and spending cuts (Charybdis) it's time to consider a secret third thing (rowing faster).
@ZLiscow takes on the deficit hawks for @TheArgumentMag.
theargumentmag.com/p/how-to-…
Alex Mechanick retweeted
Highly encourage folks to apply to these roles. @GabeMenchaca and deputy director, Amanda Patarino, are brilliant and kind and putting together a really unique state capacity operation.
Just an incredible opportunity.
Alex Mechanick retweeted
Our team is hiring multiple policy professionals at multiple levels and in multiple functional areas. Link below, apply by November 29 and tell your friends.
For those interested in seeing the second term Trump and second term George W. Bush net approval ratings in one figure:
Alex Mechanick retweeted
NEWS: 19 FORMER ECONOMIC AND NATIONAL SECURITY LEADERS ENDORSE THE BIPARTISAN PERMITTING REFORM BILL
Today, a group of former Cabinet members and White House principals across seven Democratic and Republican administrations sent a letter calling on Congress to pass BAAJA. Here are the signatories:
Janet YELLEN, Michael R. POMPEO, Steven T. MNUCHIN, Leon E. PANETTA, Timothy F. GEITHNER, Henry M. PAULSON, Jr., Robert E. RUBIN, Stephen MIRAN, Jared BERNSTEIN, Tyler GOODSPEED, Jason FURMAN, Glenn HUBBARD, Laura D’Andrea TYSON, Michael J. BOSKIN, Jeffrey ZIENTS, Jake SULLIVAN, Brian DEESE, Larry KUDLOW, Allan B. HUBBARD
Key highlights from the letter:
1. “We are not building infrastructure fast enough to remain globally competitive… The median time for a new power plant to move from an interconnection request to commercial operation has more than doubled, from less than two years for projects built between 2000 and 2007 to more than four years for projects built between 2018 and 2024.
2. China has built more high-voltage transmission in the last fifteen years than the U.S. has built in all of its history... In 2024, China accounted for 31.5% of global knowledge- and technology-intensive manufacturing value added, compared with 20.7% for the United States.
3. Federally funded or permitted projects require NEPA review, but private projects often do not, creating a threat of failure precisely where the government is trying to be proactive, strategic, and engaged.
4. A project that spends years awaiting approval must continue carrying development and financing costs while remaining exposed to rising input costs. The IEA reports that prices for utility-scale transformers increased 26% in 2024, while lead times for some transformers have stretched as long as six years.
5. Mining projects also face tremendous uncertainty: a 2026 study by researchers at the Colorado School of Mines found that permitting for modern mining projects takes an average of 5.5 years, rising to 8.9 years for contested projects. The U.S. currently has the second-longest mine development timeline in the world.
6. The Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act is the most significant bipartisan legislative effort that Congress has undertaken in decades to tackle these challenges.
7. BAAJA addresses key constraints stifling American industry by requiring interregional transmission planning, strengthening the federal backstop for nationally significant transmission lines, and creating a faster, more predictable process for connecting new generation to the grid.
8. BAAJA also makes permits more durable by imposing tighter timelines for litigation and limiting frivolous lawsuits that can halt projects indefinitely, while preserving community input and judicial review of substantive agency decisions.”
The letter was organized by @arnabdatta321 on behalf of @IFP and covered exclusively by the WSJ this morning.
Alex Mechanick retweeted
On the Israeli settler attack on Palestinians and a WaPo journalist during an olive harvest:
nytimes.com/2026/10/16/world…
One thing our reporters noted that hasn't gotten much attention: the IDF shot a man running *away*, then claimed he was running at them with a "sharp object."
Alex Mechanick retweeted
If you are interested in applying economic policy research to better understand how different types of policy changes affect innovation, productivity, and economic growth, please consider applying to work with my research team at Dartmouth:
apply.interfolio.com/194525
I love that @zackbeauchamp wrote a piece on plans from folks (inc. me) to make government more effective *and* more constrained.
IMO, the permitting bill shows that there is bipartisan support for tackling both sides of the problem.
Let's pass it, then build on it!
In a great piece by @emilypont (heatmap.news/politics/permit…), I tried to emphasize an important point that gets lost in the permitting reform/BAAJA discussion:
Given the role that the APA plays, there is little downside (and a lot of upside) to the NEPA and NHPA changes.
Alex Mechanick retweeted
In @nytopinion
If A.I. programs “cannot be trusted to work within the law, the companies should not release them,” the editorial board writes. “If the programs break the law, the companies should face the consequences.” nyti.ms/4hHbsyQ
Trump is funding Russia by buying their oil; Russia oil revenues fund the killing of Ukrainians and Americans (via Iran). Sickening.
Trump's action is also illegal - unless I am forgetting something - under the Ending Importation of Russian Oil Act of 2022:
Alex Mechanick retweeted
"In the US, most infrastructure is acquired through public procurement...costs are thus part of a larger question about procurement," writes Lindsey Currier in our latest BUILD Research Network Blog Post.
Read the full post on the BUILD website: build.ssrc.org/infrastructur…
Alex Mechanick retweeted
What?!?!?! The US punishes India for importing fuel from Russia and threatens 100% tariffs on other countries that do so. And then Trump blithely announces the US is doing the same?
Alex Mechanick retweeted
Great thread responding to some of the confusion over the bipartisan permitting bill's "project certainty" provisions. Related points:
1. Even without the new provisions **existing law** (primarily the APA) limits what the executive branch can do to stop work on, slow-walk, or revoke permits.
2. This administration's actions targeting renewables, particularly wind, show this to be the case -- they have lost every legal challenge to those actions.
3. The executive branch is meant to "take care that the laws are faithfully executed." That includes the laws Congress has passed providing for, e.g., oil and gas leasing, AND renewables leasing.
4. Any plan for decarbonization (or any other goal) that rests on the President NOT faithfully executing the laws is a bad plan both practically -- ie, not likely to succeed in court -- and from the standpoint of our democratic and constitutional norms.
5. The executive branch has many totally legal tools (including loans, federal purchasing, research etc etc) to coduct industrial policy that are far more effective than trying to halt or slow the permits of disfavored projects.
Alex Mechanick retweeted
JFK in 1963: "Under present-day conditions weekly benefits are often too low in relation to lost wages to enable the worker to meet his basic and nondeferrable expenses."
This problem still exists and can be fixed with a version of JFK's proposed reforms:
searchlightinstitute.org/res…
Alex Mechanick retweeted
The case for the permitting deal
slowboring.com/p/the-permitt…
Alex Mechanick retweeted
New York had to take 3 years and write 4,007 pages just to get through federal environmental review to do its own congestion pricing.
But if the new permitting reform bill passed, this ludicrous, anti-environmental outcome would be history.
The congestion pricing NEPA review was so ridiculous because any opponent (like New Jersey) can sue and say you should've considered some extra thing. If a judge agrees with them, the project stops.
But under the new bill, lawsuits can only stop a project for substantive harms, not for writing 4,007 pages instead of 4,025 pages.
Thanks to work by @SenWhitehouse, @SenatorHeinrich and others, America can be liberated from the anti-environmental consequences of our environmental laws.
Remember those giant binders that blocked congestion pricing? BAAJA fixes that
- The bill would force agencies to finalize environmental assessments in one year.
- If the highway department dragged its feet like it did under Trump 1.0 NYC could sue them and get a court to compel action.
- The review would also be shorter: BAAJA gets rid of unnecessary alternatives analysis and the need for litigation proofing.
- If New Jersey (or anybody else) sued the NEPA review they wouldn't be able to delay or block congestion pricing.
- DOT would be barred from revoking any approval for congestion pricing & NYC could take legal action if they tried
nitter.cf/AidanRMackenzie/status…
Alex Mechanick retweeted
Necessary reading if you're curious about the permitting bill's procedural reforms.
The procedural reforms in the permitting bill would do enormous good if enacted. (A BAAJA blast, if you will.)
Here is an explainer of what those changes are, what they would do, and why it matters: artificialweights.substack.c…
