CELS Playbook: Clean Electricity for Local and State Governments
State and Local Actions to Make Government Work for People, Reduce Utility Bills, and Deploy Clean Energy
Elected leaders across the country are staring down interlocking crises. Families and businesses are struggling to pay skyrocketing utility bills. Large new demands are straining the grid and overtaking the buildout of new power plants. And the public’s faith in government has hit new lows. We need a new playbook to solve these problems and make the government responsive to peoples’ needs.
What’s going wrong?
Utility bills are rising rapidly for households and businesses due to an administrative state ill-equipped to protect customers from costs and risks. The cost of power supply is increasing due to growing demand, long timelines to build new cheap clean energy, and volatile natural gas prices. Utilities are spending more money on the transmission and distribution grid for both maintenance and recovery from wildfires and other disasters. Today’s regulatory construct allows utilities to drive spending decisions and pass on all these costs to customers, and regulators are under-resourced and unwilling to find alternative solutions.
Meanwhile, we are not building clean energy nor upgrading the grid fast enough to meet demand growth and address climate change. And this problem will get worse as power-hungry data centers connect to the grid and electrification of buildings, vehicles, and factories adds additional electricity demand.
The old climate policy playbook is not equipped for this moment. While it has driven significant deployment of low-cost clean energy, it was not designed to address non-financial obstacles to building projects and upgrading the grid nor to fully mobilize the suite of finance tools needed for the energy transition, nor to demonstrate that the government can make peoples’ lives better, now and long term.
Where do we go from here?
Policymakers and advocates need an expanded playbook. One that addresses the full set of barriers impeding financing and construction of clean energy and grid modernization projects. One that targets the root causes of high energy costs. One that reworks the administrative state to make government work for the people.
FAS, with the help of partner organizations spanning ideology and function, launched the Center for Regulatory to Ingenuity to build a vision for a government that is agile and responsive and delivers affordable energy, abundant housing, and safe transportation for all Americans.
As part of this work, we have developed an updated set of policies and actions for state and local leaders to meet this moment. We started by identifying the barriers to deployment and the flaws in the old playbook, published in our report Barriers to Building. Now we are developing the “plays” in a new playbook—tangible actions that state and local leaders can take now to make near-term progress and pilot new solutions. These plays will live on this landing page, which we will continue to update with additional actions.
This playbook is not a laundry list of policies but rather a cohesive strategy to achieve two goals: (1) deploy the clean energy and grid upgrades necessary to make energy affordable and combat climate change and (2) create governments that tangibly improve peoples’ lives.1
Contents (click to jump to a section)
- Main Character Energy: Make Regulators Main Characters in Planning and Ratemaking
- Improve State Government Responsiveness to Clean Energy Projects
- Build Administrative Capacity to Plan for an Affordable & Reliable Grid
- Fix Broken Incentives to Expand Distributed Energy Resources
- Wield Creative Finance Tools to Drive Investment and Reduce Capital Costs
Main Character Energy: Make Regulators Main Characters in Planning and Ratemaking
Utilities and their regulators are responsible for major decisions about what infrastructure we build and how much people pay for energy. Utilities—which can be owned by investors, the public (e.g., municipal utilities), or members (i.e., electric cooperatives)—conduct detailed analysis and provide proposals on planning and ratemaking to their regulators. The set of solutions below focuses on investor-owned utilities, who are incentivized to prioritize projects that maximize the returns for their shareholders. As a result, they underutilize solutions that could save customers money but do not earn companies a profit, like rooftop solar or technology-or maintenance-based upgrades to existing transmission lines.
In a well-functioning system, regulators—whether Public Utility Commissions (PUCs) or locally elected officials—would rigorously interrogate utility analyses and direct the utilities to shape or revise their proposals to maximize benefits to the public at lowest public cost. This lens is needed to ensure that utilities are spending money wisely in the public interest and prevent unnecessary bill increases from overspending on the wrong solutions. Active regulators are also needed to incorporate long-term considerations in planning and ensure consideration of strategies that provide long-term benefits. However, regulators are often not well-equipped or politically willing to conduct detailed analysis and push back on utility proposals. Other intervenors, like consumer advocates and environmental organizations, are outspent by the utilities, who can recover the costs of their analysis and interventions through customer bills in most states.
The result is a reactive, short-term-focused administrative state that leaves the public frustrated. Regular people are frustrated with skyrocketing bills, clean energy companies are frustrated with slow processes and broken incentives, and both are frustrated with the government’s ability to solve big problems. The administrative state itself—the officials and staff who make up regulatory body and state and local governments—are also frustrated with their perpetually reactive role and with limited say in outcomes.
We should not accept the status-quo regulatory process as a given. As representatives of the public, regulators should have both the ability and motivation to actively drive toward an abundance of cheap clean energy, affordable bills, and a modernized reliable grid. Achieving this vision requires the right personnel, clear direction and support from governors, and adequate analytical capacity.
Solutions
I. Direct Regulators to Use All Tools to Lower Energy Bills and Deploy Clean Energy (Governors and Legislatures)
When regulators take a backseat and let utilities drive, they narrow the toolkit of resources that can help meet demand and as a result leave savings on the table. Regulators with a mandate to prioritize affordability and clean energy buildout can reduce bills by both better scrutinizing utility plans and taking a more active role in enabling clean energy deployment. This includes finding creative tools to get more out of the grid through distributed energy resources, alternative transmission technologies, and flexible sources of demand like electric vehicle charging and factories with electric appliances.
Governors can direct PUCs to audit utility investments to find opportunities for savings, re-evaluate utility business models and incentive structures, consider distributed energy resources and alternative transmission technologies in planning, and consider climate impacts in planning and ratemaking decisions.
Legislatures can set statutory requirements for PUCs to consider these opportunities and expand their mandates to include clean energy goals and highest net benefit criteria.
Legislators can require PUCs to find savings across the gas and electric systems, including by using beneficial electrification to reduce costs.
In 2021, the Maine legislature directed the PUC to consider emissions reduction targets and equity impacts in regulatory decisions.
Oregon Governor Brown directed its PUC to integrate the state’s climate pollution reduction goals and promote equity by prioritizing vulnerable populations and affected communities.
New Jersey Governor Sherrill directed the PUC to review utility business models and assess whether they are aligned with cost reductions for customers.
In 2024, Minnesota S.F.4942 mandated that the PUC establish standards for sharing utility costs for system upgrades, ensuring fair cost-sharing and advancing state renewable and carbonfree energy goals along with provisions for energy conservation programs for low-income households.
II. Even the Playing Field by Providing More Resources to the PUC and Consumer Intervenors and Increasing Data Transparency (Governors, Legislatures, and PUCs)
Electricity rates are determined by proceedings called rate cases, in which utilities submit proposals and justifications to regulators, other intervenors (such as consumer advocates, environmental organizations, and state and local elected officials) submit testimony, and the regulators hold hearings and make a decision. Most rate cases end in settlement agreements between the utilities and other intervenors, facilitated by the PUC. Utilities drive this process—they file initial proposals and have more information about their system than other participants. Well-resourced PUCs and public interest intervenors are important to interrogate utility proposals and ensure that settlement agreements are a good deal for regular people.
In order to take on more responsibility in grid planning and utility oversight, PUCs need additional staff and analytical capacity. For example, a legislative commission in Texas found that the PUC needs more staff and resources to independently analyze utility sector data and provide sufficient oversight to ensure reliability. Funding for staff and analysis has a great return on investment—state leaders can save customers money and get better outcomes for a relatively small price.
Moreover, consumer advocate intervenors are typically underfunded compared to utilities and so cannot compete with utility proposals. This disparity in funding places consumer advocates in a position of exclusively reacting to utility requests, rather than having the bandwidth to interrogate existing system inequities or to develop potential innovative solutions to address ratepayer needs. Utilities also determine the pacing of their rate case applications, which can put consumer advocates even more on their heels. For example, in a 2019 rate case in Colorado, Xcel Energy brought 21 witnesses, while only a few consumer advocate intervenors testified.
Utilities in most states can recover the full costs of analysis and intervention legal fees from customers, giving the utilities significant resources to drive the process. States can prohibit this practice, directly reducing bills for customers and reducing utility influence over the process.
In addition to resources for PUCs and intervenors, data transparency can help even the playing field. Utility data are often difficult to access, embedded in filings that often run thousands of pages, and not standardized. This lack of data transparency makes it difficult for PUCs and consumer advocates to track utility spending and effectively intervene in rate cases.
Legislatures can provide additional funding for PUCs to hire additional staff and conduct independent analysis.
Legislatures and PUCs can prohibit utilities from recovering the costs of political activities from customers and limit the amount of legal fees that are recoverable from customers.
Legislatures can establish mechanisms to ensure that low‑income, consumer, and environmental justice advocates can participate meaningfully in PUC proceedings. Several U.S. states have implemented intervenor compensation programs or similar initiatives that reimburse reasonable costs for nonprofit organizations and community groups engaged in utility regulatory processes.
PUCs can charge utilities to fund independent analysis of utility proposals on behalf of customers.
PUCs can assess their processes with an eye toward reducing participation barriers for non-traditional docket participants, such as groups representing low-income or environmental justice communities.
PUCs can standardize reporting on utility costs and increase data transparency both during and in between rate cases.
Governors can direct agencies to conduct analysis to inform PUC proceedings and hire technical talent to engage with the PUC. Legislators can authorize and fund state agencies to conduct independent, proactive analysis to inform PUC proceedings, with opportunities for public input on the analysis.
California passed AB 1167 in 2025 that put an end to the use of ratepayer funds for political lobbying and strengthening enforcement against investor-owned utilities (IOUs) that illegally use ratepayer funds.
A 2023 Colorado law prohibited utilities from charging customers for lobbying expenses, political spending, trade association dues, and other similar activities.
In Illinois, a 2021 law expanded the Consumer Intervenor Compensation Fund to compensate consumer interest intervenors in planning and rate cases.
The Oregon PUC provides both Intervenor Funding and a dedicated Justice Funding program, supporting groups representing environmental justice communities and low‑income customers, with clearly defined funding caps for eligible participants.
Improve State Government Responsiveness to Clean Energy Projects
To build a clean energy project, developers must navigate a complex mix of state environmental permits, local and/or state siting approvals, and utility and grid operator interconnection processes. While federal permitting reform receives the most attention, most clean energy projects do not require federal approval and often get stuck due to state processes and local restrictions. For example, 73 percent of wind and solar projects that faced opposition in the 2010s were contested only at the state and local level, not federally.
In many places, these federal, state and local processes are not working for anybody—the clean energy developers who seek to build projects, the local communities in need of jobs and economic development, and the families and businesses struggling with rising utility bills.
What is going wrong? State agencies are often stretched thin, and outdated processes make it difficult to respond quickly to new projects. Most states lack a single designated authority at the state level who can oversee and enforce timelines. Permitting approvals often involve regional offices who take different approaches, increasing complexity and uncertainty for developers applying for permits. Inconsistent decision timelines increase risk for projects, raising costs.
In most states, local governments have control over siting, and each municipality has different processes and requirements, adding complexity for developers. Most states also lack a state authority that can ensure local governments do not unreasonably block or delay projects. About 20 percent of U.S. counties now have formal restrictions on clean energy projects.
State and local leaders can play a critical role in addressing these challenges. Governors can target agency capacity where it is most needed and legislatures can complement these efforts by funding permitting offices, creating statutory timelines to standardize reviews, and giving them enough decision-making power to actually meet those deadlines. State governments can leverage their capacity to evaluate costs, risks, and benefits—across timescales and geographies—of projects to inform decisions. Local governments can similarly improve and standardize their processes and support state implementation.
This brief focuses on a subset of solutions that help states be more responsive to clean energy projects. These solutions expand and improve government capacity to build clean power faster, lower utility bills, and demonstrate that the government can be an active and effective partner in solving problems.
Solutions
I. Increase Permitting Certainty and Consistency (Governors and Legislatures)
Uncertainty and inconsistency in permitting processes increases costs and delays projects. Timelines to hear back from an agency might vary considerably from one project to another, which adds uncertainty to project timelines. Some review processes are run by regional offices which may take different approaches to project evaluation (e.g., using different assumptions for modeling the impact of a project) and mitigation requirements. As a result, the same developer might go through a bespoke process for two very similar projects in different parts of the same state.
In addition, the scopes and goals of state environmental laws are often outdated. For example, environmental review often does not consider system-wide effects or second-order emissions impacts. As a result, environmental review often gets stuck on project-by-project analysis and lacks an overarching vision for the system.
States can address these issues minimal to no cost and without sacrificing the quality of environmental review by increasing certainty and consistency of permitting processes, centralizing capacity to run processes across agencies, and adjusting the goals and scope of environmental statute to include system-wide impacts and overarching climate goals.
Governors can issue clear guidance and standard operating procedures for analysis of impacts for different clean energy project types required under different laws (e.g., state clean water or environmental review statutes) and set timelines that agencies must follow for review and decisions.
Governors can set clear permitting goals for agencies and empower the “machinery” expertise (e.g., staff engineers, lawyers, environmental specialists, etc.) to meet those goals. Governors can also develop programs to upskill existing staff to expand the technical capacity needed for permitting operations.
Governors can issue guidance on mitigation requirements that projects can take to shorten review.
Legislatures can also set statutory decision timelines and limitations on what impacts are considered to further increase certainty for projects. In some cases, legislatures may need to provide agencies with the authority and resources required to standardize mitigation requirements and speed up timelines.
Legislatures can re-align the goals and requirements of permitting statutes and environmental review to prioritize system-wide goals.
Legislatures and governors can exempt certain clean energy projects from state environmental permitting or create simplified permitting pathways for such projects.
Legislatures can mandate and support adoption of instant digital permitting for distributed energy resources located at homes and businesses, drastically reducing the cost to install rooftop solar and energy storage.
Governors and legislatures can consolidate agency authorities, reducing the number of process steps for developers and conflicts between agencies.
In Pennsylvania, solar developers must obtain a stormwater permit from the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), a process that involves working with regional conservation districts on stormwater analysis and agreement on mitigation requirements. Developers have struggled with inconsistent approaches among conservation districts on modeling assumptions and mitigation requirements. In December 2025, DEP issued updated its Solar Panel Farms Frequently Asked Questions to clarify key analytical inputs for solar developers and will increase consistency in conservation district approaches.
The New York State Legislature passed the Accelerated Renewable Energy Growth and Community Benefit Act, mandating specific timelines for permit reviews, consolidating authority across agencies, and providing funding to support dedicated staff. This statutory framework has significantly reduced approval times for large-scale renewable projects.
Pennsylvania Governor Shapiro also directed state agencies to evaluate the timelines for each permitting process and set a specified maximum timeline for eligible projects by which applications will be processed.
In 2025, state legislatures in New Jersey, Texas, and Florida passed laws requiring local governments to adopt instant digital permitting processes for distributed resources.
Arizona House Bill 2003 allows utilities to replace conductors or structures on an existing transmission line without needing to apply for a Certificate of Environmental Compatibility (CEC) as long the line has a valid CEC (or has been grandfathered in) and all original conditions continue to be met.
In Minnesota, HF 4700 consolidated certain permitting responsibilities into a single law and shortened the timeline for state regulators to review and permit clean energy projects.
Texas passed SB 20 in 2005, establishing Competitive Renewable Energy Zones that smooth the process of developing and integrating renewable energy projects into the grid. This program has helped bring more than 18 GW of wind capacity online.
II. Increase Siting Certainty and Consistency (Governors, Legislatures, Local Leaders)
In most states, local governments handle siting of clean energy projects. Municipalities and counties within the same state may take wildly different approaches to siting, including different fee structures, setback requirements, public input requirements, approval processes and timelines, etc. This variability makes it harder to build clean energy projects without added benefit to communities. State leaders can improve certainty and consistency without sacrificing project quality or local benefits.
Legislatures can standardize processes across local governments, including by setting standard timelines for decisions, prohibiting excessive restrictions on clean energy projects and grid upgrades, and limiting the reasons for which a project can be denied approval.
Legislatures can move siting authority to the state level for large projects or projects that meet certain criteria (e.g., projects that create good jobs and economic benefits).
State lawmakers can create a streamlined, one-stop permitting process for distributed energy resources. This process would consolidate building, zoning, and environmental approvals. Such a framework reduces delays, lowers costs, and provides developers and homeowners with greater certainty.
Governors can develop model siting ordinances and encourage or incentivize local governments to adopt them.
Local governments can voluntarily work together to align processes.
Colorado developed a clean electricity code repository that included principles for smart local code design for clean electricity deployment.
Michigan HB 5120 financially incentivizes local governments to avoid overly restrictive ordinances and creates a state-led pathway for projects to by-pass overly restrictive local ordinances.
Arizona House Bill 2019 standardized timelines for municipalities to make permit decisions and took steps to ensure municipalities are responsive, including requirements on providing contact information and communicating with permit applicants.
A bill introduced in the Oregon legislature would exempt clean energy projects eligible for soon-to-expire federal tax credits from the state’s onerous state siting process.
Hawaii’s proposed SB588 creates a self-certification and standardized permitting system for behind-the-meter solar and storage projects.
Illinois HB 4412 set statewide renewable energy project siting standards that takes supremacy over unduly restrictive local decisions.
Indiana’s SB 411 set voluntary siting standards for wind and solar power projects. If communities meet those standards, they’re pre-cleared for project development.
New Mexico’s Renewable Energy Transmission Authority established an MOU with the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council to improve coordination and receive assistance on eligible permitting projects.
III. Create Dynamic Agencies that Can Respond to Project Needs (Governors and Legislatures)
States should build dynamic, flexible agencies that are responsive to evolving barriers to clean energy deployment. Government responsiveness is often thwarted by limited or outdated information, poor information sharing across agencies, and lack of centralized decision-making. Governors and state agency leads often do not know which specific processes are causing delays or uncertainty for projects. Where agencies have that information, it is often not shared among agencies or with the governor’s office without intervention. Agencies often do not have the mandate or the capacity to track and share this information.
A mandate and resources to collect detailed information on project barriers, and to share that information across agencies, allows states to be more responsive to clean energy industry needs. Using this information, states can ensure that limited agency capacity is targeted where it can have the greatest impact and helps agencies anticipate, rather than react to, common obstacles.
Governors can identify the specific government processes and other barriers that are holding up projects and increasing uncertainty through direct engagement with developers and formal processes like Requests for Informations. Governors can survey developers for specific information on the failure points in the process of getting projects built, across permitting, siting, interconnection, etc. Governors can then address the critical bottlenecks by adjusting the processes that are outdated or not serving the public or shifting capacity where processes must be maintained but are moving too slowly.
Governors can build centralized processes—for example by designating a senior official as state-wide lead for permitting coordination—that can quickly respond to bottlenecks and share information across agencies. Governors and legislatures can designate a single agency as the lead on permitting, siting, and project assistance and provide that agency with the authority to make decisions. For these steps to work, governors must provide the lead official or agency with the adequate decision-making authority and capacity to run the process.
Legislators can provide the resources for the above-referenced information collection and the authority for centralized permitting processes.
The Colorado Energy Office and Department of Natural Resources conducted an extensive survey of developers, local governments, community organizations, and other stakeholders to detail clean energy siting and permitting issues and develop a plan to address them.
Following passage of HR 1 in Congress, which rapidly phased out tax incentives for certain renewable energy technologies, Governors’ offices in states like North Carolina and Pennsylvania organized inter-agency dialogue with private sector stakeholders to identify and accelerate projects that could form cost-saving federal incentives before they expire.
The California Energy Commission runs a consolidated permitting process that centralizes staff capacity to manage permitting, with specified review timelines for clean energy projects that meet certain job quality and community benefits criteria.
Washington House Bill 1216 authorized the Department of Ecology to run a consolidated permitting process to collect all relevant information from developers and coordinate across agencies to speed up review. That bill also created an interagency Clean Energy Siting Council to improve how projects are sited in the state.
In New York, Governor Kathy Hochul directed state agencies to accelerate renewable project approvals by reviewing and reforming agency processes to reduce backlogs and coordinate efforts across departments, from environmental review to project eligibility screening, focusing agency attention on projects ready to leverage expiring federal tax incentives.
IV. Speed Up Interconnection Timelines (Governors, Legislatures, and Public Utility Commissions)
Long timelines for approvals to connect to the grid and to complete necessary transmission upgrades are one of the largest drivers of project cancellations and delays. States have little control over the interconnection process for projects connecting to the bulk transmission system, which is regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. However, states can help projects use surplus interconnection processes, which enable faster approval for projects that are using excess interconnection capacity at existing generators. States also have control over the interconnection process to connect smaller projects to the distribution grid, which is run by utilities and regulated by the PUC.
Governors can direct state energy offices proactively identify and map surplus interconnection capacity and use state procurement authority, expedited permitting processes, and incentives to encourage clean energy development at those sites. This analysis should also include sites that may have excess interconnection capacity because projects (generators or new large load sources) fell through or shut down after triggering grid upgrades
Legislatures can require PUCs and utilities to consider using sites with underutilized transmission (e.g. sites of peaking gas-fired power plants that operate very infrequently) for clean energy development.
Governors and PUCs can identify zones where load is likely to increase (e.g., due to data center deployment, electrification of ports, and heavy-duty freight trucking) and fast-track distributed interconnection for projects in those areas.
PUCs can require that utilities develop rapid procurements for clean energy resources at sites with surplus interconnection.
In California, AB 1408 would have required state agencies, the state grid operator, and utilities to incorporate surplus interconnection capacity into long-term planning, but it was vetoed by Governor Newsom.
Virginia HB 1065, introduced in the 2026 legislative session, would task the State Corporation Commission with conducting a study of available surplus interconnection potential, and requires the state’s largest utility to procure new capacity via surplus interconnection.
In Indiana, HB 240, proposed in 2026, would require utilities in their integrated resources plan to analyze how much extra interconnection capacity they have and how they can use that existing capacity to bring more generation resources online. And, it would require such analysis to be done before permitting new power plants.
V. Provide Additional Funding for Siting and Permitting (Governors and Legislatures)
Clean energy permitting delays often stem from understaffed or under-resourced agencies struggling with outdated processes and technology. Legislatures can address this by increasing dedicated funding for permitting offices, enabling agencies to hire technical staff, invest in modern permitting platforms, and reduce backlogs. Allocating funding for targeted reforms can substantially shorten approval timelines. Potential examples of such include digital permit tracking systems, programmatic environmental reviews for common project types, and training specialized clean energy reviewers. States can start by digitizing permitting processes and making it easier for projects to submit the required information. States can then collect information from developers on the processes that are causing the most difficulty and provide targeted staffing and resources to address these bottlenecks.
Governors and legislatures can digitalize state permitting processes to improve transparency and interagency workflow management.
Governors and legislatures can institute state-level digital permitting platforms.
Governors and legislatures can create shared staff resources to hire the high-demand technical expertise necessary for permitting and enable those experts to move quickly between agencies in response to need.
State agencies and legislatures can initiate programmatic environmental reviews for clean energy projects subject to state environmental review laws.
Virginia’s Permitting Enhancement and Evaluation Platform (PEEP), now expanded as the Virginia Permit Transparency (VPT) system, was enacted by executive order. The VPT provides a public dashboard to track permits through state processes and workflow management tools for agency staff.
The Washington State Legislature created the Clean Energy Siting and Permitting (CESP) Grants Program, providing roughly $4.85 million to local governments, tribes, and state agencies to hire staff and modernize permitting workflows for solar, wind, and storage projects. By funding technical staff and process improvements, the legislature helped agencies reduce backlogs and provide more predictable permitting timelines for developers.
In 2025, Washington’s Department of Ecology, under direction from the legislature, completed programmatic environmental reviews for clean energy projects to speed permitting application and review of onshore wind, solar, and hydrogen projects in the state.
In Arizona, digitization of several environmental permitting processes helped reduce decision timeframes by 91 percent.
Build Administrative Capacity to Plan for an Affordable & Reliable Grid
Today, the U.S. bulk transmission system faces significant constraints that limit where new clean energy projects can be built and threaten overall grid reliability. Many regions with abundant clean energy resources simply do not have enough high-voltage transmission capacity to deliver that power to population centers. As a result, developers are increasingly unable to move generation projects forward even when siting, permitting, financing, and interconnection queue positions are in place. Without new transmission capacity, interconnection backlogs grow, power costs increase, and states are forced to rely on older fossil resources simply because they are already in place.
Transmission buildout is thwarted by barriers such as long planning timelines of 7 to 15 years, route identification, environmental review, litigation, supply chain constraints, and fragmented and inadequate planning processes.
While the permitting reforms described elsewhere in the playbook would help, we won’t build the transmission system that we need without improved planning. Building transmission lines requires utilities, developers, customers, and grid operators to work together to determine where a transmission line is needed and appropriately allocate costs across different stakeholders. Without a strong administrative state that can facilitate the process and collect and share all the required information (such as congestion on current lines, hotspots of demand growth, areas with high potential for cheap clean energy, etc.), this process often fails and very rarely results in optimal expansion of the transmission system. Today, states and grid operators lack administrative capacity to conduct this planning process, which is hamstringing our ability to expand the grid.
States can build the capacity to improve planning in order to spur development of transmission lines with the greatest benefit for the public.
Solutions
I. Include Advanced Transmission Technologies in Planning (Legislatures, Governors, and Public Utility Commissions)
Advanced Transmission Technologies (ATTs) can be used to increase grid capacity on current rights-of-way, alleviating congestion and allowing for more efficient energy transfer without building new infrastructure. Utilities being able to increase efficiency and cost effectiveness of their infrastructure is especially important as load growth continues to increase across the country and raise retail electricity bills. For example, installing high-performance conductors increases the amount of electricity that can be transferred over an existing transmission line. By one estimate, reconductoring with these technologies could double transmission capacity on the current grid. Dynamic line ratings allow lines to carry more electricity when weather conditions are good, rather than defaulting to conservative limits on line capacity. Each type of ATT has its own advantages and benefits.
PUCs can dictate standards, enforce rules, conduct studies, and establish new policies that require and incentivize utilities to evaluate and deploy ATTs.
Legislatures can require utilities to include evaluation of ATTs in planning processes, conduct studies on ATT potential and deployment opportunities, and analyze ATTs as potential enhancements to new transmission infrastructure.
Governors can petition ATT rulemakings to the PUC via an executive order, can integrate ATTs into funding criteria for grid or resilience projects and direct economic development agencies to study the economic impacts of ATTs, and convene ATT task forces to set direction and collaborate with educational institutions to develop workforce training programs focused on ATTs installation, operation, and maintenance.
Utah’s SB 191 requires utilities to conduct an alternatives analysis for ATTs in IRPs and also provides language that the Commission can approve cost-recovery for ATTs if it is determined the deployment is cost-effective.
Ohio’s HB 15 requires that utilities summarize ATT evaluation in power siting board certificates and furnish annual 5-year reports on ATT deployment opportunities, including congestion mitigation studies and that the PUC evaluate the potential of ATT deployment including consultation from stakeholders via two public workshops.
Governor Wes Moore’s December 2025 Executive Order Building an Affordable and Reliable Energy Future creates a Transmission Modernization Working Group that makes ATT policy recommendations to the Maryland Energy Administration, which in turn makes formal petitions to the PUC.
Montana House Bill 729, adopted in 2023, enables the state PUC to set cost-effectiveness criteria to allow utilities to deploy advanced transmission conductor technologies and recoup the cost via their ratepayers, similar to investments in new energy generation.
II. Create a New Transmission Planning Authority (Governors and Legislatures)
Lack of coordination between transmission and generation planning creates inefficiencies and prevents smart clean energy development. In deregulated markets—and in some vertically integrated states—transmission and generation planning processes occur largely in isolation without systematic processes to align long-term clean energy expansion with major grid upgrades. While the federal government has authority to set the rules for planning regional and interregional transmission lines, state leaders have tools at their disposal to expand transmission buildout and improve planning.
Legislatures can create transmission planning authorities explicitly authorized to identify transmission corridors that can expand low-cost clean energy generation, lead on the permitting and siting of transmission lines, secure project finance, negotiate and collaborate with other states on interstate transmission plans, provide advice on transmission priorities and planning needs for the state, and enter into public or private partnerships to help with project development. These authorities must be empowered and resourced to collect all the necessary information (e.g., congestion on the existing system, load forecasts, sites of cheap clean energy, etc.) and to attract top talent with expertise in utility planning, project development, and financing.
Governors can create a transmission advisory or coordinating committee and reorganize state agencies, boards, and commissions to serve the purpose of a transmission authority or to create one.
New Mexico passed the Renewable Energy Transmission Authority (RETA) Act in 2007, creating RETA and authorizing it to “plan, license, finance, develop and acquire high-voltage transmission lines and storage projects to help diversify New Mexico’s economy through the development of renewable energy resources.”
In Colorado, SB21-072 created the Colorado Electric Transmission Authority (CETA) to plan and develop transmission lines to increase reliability and deploy more clean energy. CETA has very similar powers to New Mexico’s authority.
III. Require Integrated Transmission and Generation Planning (Governors, Legislatures, and Public Utility Commissions)
Coordinated planning is essential to ensure that transmission is expanded in the right places and that new clean energy investments can flow to areas with sufficient transmission capacity. Around 35 states require their utilities to develop Integrated Resource Plans (IRPs), which act as a roadmap for how the utility will meet future forecasted electricity demand over a specific time period. Although transmission and generation are key inputs for energy supply, they are usually not included in these plans. The result is piecemeal grid planning, as transmission providers and developers focus on smaller lines which meet near-term needs and are profitable within their own footprint.This shortcoming is a product of both process—regulators and state agencies have not been mandated to link transmission and generation planning—and capacity, where the administrative state lacks the right staff and resources to conduct integrated planning.
Integrating these processes can ensure better coordination between load and generator interconnection, a more holistic understanding and roadmap of current and future grid reliability and supply chain needs, help avoid duplicative investments and ensure costs for upgrades remain reasonable, and can lower the likelihood of stranded or undersized assets. This integrated planning is especially important in places with projected load growth, whether from data center buildout or electrification of buildings, heavy-duty transportation, or factories.
Governors can direct relevant agencies to work with grid operators, PUCs, and utilities to encourage integrated planning.
Legislatures in vertically integrated states can require utilities to conduct IRPs where they don’t already do so and further require generation and transmission planning to be integrated.
PUCs can require utilities to link transmission and generation planning.
Enacted in 2021, Nevada S.B.448 requires an electric utility to amend its most recently filed resource plan to include a plan for certain high-voltage transmission infrastructure construction projects that will be placed into service before 2029.
In 2022, a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the California Independent System Operator (California ISO), the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), and the California Energy Commission (CEC) ensured that the planning and implementation of new transmission and other resources were linked, synchronized, and transparent.
IV. Ensure Effective Implementation of FERC Order 1920 (Governors, Legislators, and Public Utility Commissions)
Recent federal actions, such as FERC Order 1920, have the potential to be a useful tool for states if implemented correctly and efficiently. FERC Order 1920 requires long-term, forward-looking, multi-value regional planning. It was designed to improve transparency in local transmission planning, including by conducting local stakeholder meetings. Under this filing, transmission providers must produce long-term, at least 20-year, regional transmission plans at least every five years, which must utilize seven specific categories of forward looking factors, select projects based on different economic and reliability benefits, and consider the use of grid-enhancing technologies.
Governors can take a more active role with PUCs to guide their involvement in regional transmission planning processes established under FERC Order No. 1920.
State legislators can hold hearings with PUCs on how utilities, regional transmission planners, and state officials plan to participate and support regional planning and put the order into action.
In the mid-Atlantic, 69 legislators from 10 states called on PJM to implement FERC Order 1920 without delay due to the benefits of reliable, affordable and clean electricity it will bring to their constituents.
Fix Broken Incentives to Expand Distributed Energy Resources
Misaligned incentives for utilities have limited the types of technologies and solutions in play to meet demand growth and maintain reliability.
Distributed energy and grid flexibility solutions—such as rooftop solar, flexible demand, smart charging for electric vehicles, and distributed storage, as well as alternative transmission technologies—can help meet demand growth faster and cheaper than solely relying on large power plants and bulk transmission upgrades. Distributed energy resources are particularly useful in an era when interconnection delays and economic pressures on rate payers have slowed down efforts to build large-scale transmission projects and generation facilities.
Investor-owned utilities make a profit based on a fixed rate of return on certain expenditures. Utilities typically do not earn a return on distributed energy resources and grid flexibility programs so many utilities have underinvested in these solutions and underutilized them for grid planning.
Largely because of these broken incentives, there’s a lack of capacity to value, procure, and orchestrate these distributed resources, thus limiting their ability to scale as a utility resource. In most states, utilities and regulators do not consider distributed resources in planning processes. Where distributed resources are considered, it is often only through voluntary offerings and limited pilot programs.
Leveraging distributed resource solutions requires state leaders to fix broken incentives and build new government capacity tools to facilitate uptake and utilization of these technologies.
Solutions
I. Incentivize adoption and use of distributed energy resources (Legislatures and Public Utility Commissions)
States can correct misaligned incentives by creating mechanisms to value the benefits of distributed energy resources and incentivize optimal utilization of distributed resources to reduce spending on new generation and grid upgrades.
Legislatures can establish Virtual Power Plant programs—run by utilities, public developers, or partnerships between public developers and utilities—to aggregate distributed energy resources to best serve the grid and compensate these resources accordingly.
Legislatures can incentivize adoption of appliances and customer energy systems, like smart chargers and thermostats, capable of supporting the electricity grid.
Legislatures and PUCs can require utilities to create mechanisms to value the benefits of distributed resources and adjust profit motives through performance-based ratemaking to align utility incentives with expanding distributed resources.
In Colorado, SB24-218 required Xcel Energy to create a new mechanism to compensate customers for distributed energy resources that can benefit the grid.
In New Jersey, Governor Sherill issued an Executive Order directing the PUC to establish a Virtual Power Plant program to aggregate distributed energy resources and use them to benefit the grid.
II. Require procurement of distributed resources (Governors, Legislatures, and Public Utility Commissions)
Utilities generally do not procure distributed resources, focusing instead on procurement and buildout of large-scale generation. Formal procurement of distributed resources can maximize use of the existing grid and get new generation onto the grid fast, which can avoid spending on the distribution grid and save customers money.
Legislatures can set statutory requirements for minimum procurement amounts.
PUCs can require utilities to conduct procurement of distributed clean energy.
Governors can direct PUCs to initiate solicitations for distributed clean energy and set timeframes and minimum procurement amounts that PUCs and utilities must meet.
In Minnesota, Xcel Energy has proposed a Distributed Capacity Procurement of 50-200 MW of distributed energy storage. Under the procurement, the utility would contract with a developer to build small-scale batteries and pay households, businesses, and non-profit organizations to host them.
In Illinois, the Clean and Reliable Grid Affordability Act required the procurement of 3 GW of storage and created a mechanism to compensate households and businesses for customer-owned storage. The state has a government agency—the Illinois Power Agency—that develops procurement plans and runs competitive procurement processes.
In Maine, the PUC issued a Request for Proposals for solar projects on PFAS-contaminated farm land.
In New Jersey, Governor Sherill directed the PUC to procure an additional 3,000 MW of community solar through the NJ Community Solar Energy Program.
III. Improve interconnection processes for distributed resources (Governors and Public Utility Commissions)
The interconnection process is a major hurdle for new clean energy projects. Utilities run the process to connect projects to the distribution grid, and PUCs regulate this process. Because utilities typically do not profit from distributed generation, they have generally deprioritized improvements to the interconnection process for distributed generation. PUCs have not had the mandate to push utilities on improving the interconnection process for distributed resources, which means capacity has not been channeled toward this goal. State leaders can force utilities to speed up the interconnection queue to get more clean energy on the grid.
Governors can direct PUCs to improve the interconnection process with specific goals (e.g., reduce the application approval time by a specified amount) and penalties for non-compliance.
PUCs can work with utilities to make improvements to the interconnection process to shorten timelines and provide more certainty to developers. PUCs can dedicate staff resources to this issue to ensure rapid improvements to the process.
Colorado Governor Polis in an August 2025 directive tasked state agencies to pursue flexible interconnection and voluntary curtailment for distributed energy and community solar projects; work to facilitate the pre-purchase of project equipment and/or affiliated electric transmission and distribution infrastructure; and to pursue updates to interconnection standards for customer-sited projects, including the use of meter collar adapters and other measures to minimize the cost and time. The Colorado PUC is now working to allow projects to use flexible interconnection agreements—alowing projects to connect to the grid in constrained places if they agree to use technologies that can operate flexibly and avoid straining the grid—which can speed up timelines and reduce interconnection costs.
In New Jersey, Governor Sherrill directed the PUC to take several steps to standardize and speed up interconnection of clean energy projects to the distribution grid.
IV. Improve data and analysis and increase transparency to optimize deployment (Governors, Legislatures, and Public Utility Commissions)
Expanding distributed energy resources in the right places is key to maximizing benefits to the grid and reducing costs for customers. States can help inform strategic adoption through data collection and analysis on the optimal places to deploy customer-owned resources and increase transparency of those data for the public.
Policymakers can analyze opportunities that will make the most impact through avoided costs of updating the grid or building bulk generation. Distributed energy projects are most useful when they minimize constraints on the distribution system and reduce peak demand. Information sharing can be facilitated through either Integration Capacity Analysis or regular Integrated Distribution Planning.
State leaders can also identify potential projects to provide tailored support by engaging developers and site hosts directly through Requests for Information. States can then use this information to direct support to projects. For example, data collection can enable aggregation and standardization of information about siting readiness, interconnection considerations, terms and conditions, and resilience needs which can then be converted into a pre-qualified inventory for procurement or financing.
Governors can direct agencies to engage with developers and other stakeholders to identify barriers to getting distributed projects built and identify solutions to support projects (e.g., connecting host sites with developers and financiers).
Governors and PUCs can improve distribution system planning to better anticipate infrastructure needs and ensure that distribution system planning is synced with grid operator interconnection processes and transmission planning.
PUCs can require utilities to conduct and publish analysis on hosting capacity and locational value of distributed clean energy resources and establish a market for distributed energy resources.
In Massachusetts in 2024, the PUC directed utilities to incorporate “non-wires alternatives”, including distributed energy resources, into system planning. Now, one of the state’s largest utilities has launched an innovative mechanism to quickly procure distributed energy resources that provide the greatest costs reductions and grid benefits.
The New York Build‑Ready program identifies potential host sites and shifts early development duties (i.e., negotiate the initial lease and start the interconnection process) from private developers to the state, which accelerates the move of renewable energy projects from the idea stage to construction.
In New Jersey, Governor Sherill directed the PUC to work with the utility to improve hosting capacity maps for distributed energy resources.
V. Create a Municipality or Sustainable Energy Utility in lieu of an Investor Owned Utility (Legislatures and Local Leaders)
Creating a municipal utility or sustainable energy utility (SEUs) can address bypass misaligned incentives and focus on the technologies and strategies that most benefit the public. These entities differ from traditional investor owned utilities because they are not-for-profit, owned by the communities they serve, and are run by local government. Benefits of this utility model include securing more affordable electric rates for consumers, achieving renewable and clean energy goals more quickly, increasing local control and governance over energy decisions and infrastructure, and contributing to local economic development.
Legislators and local leaders can spearhead the effort of municipalizing by developing a concept and authorizing or establishing a municipal utility. State and local leaders can explore different options, including developing a supplemental utility that procures generation but still uses the private utility’s poles and wires or fully acquiring the private utility and creating a public entity to run the full system.
In 2024, residents of Ann Arbor, Michigan voted to authorize Proposal A: Creation of a Sustainable Energy Utility. The Sustainable Energy Utility (SEU) will be an opt-in, supplemental, community-owned energy utility that provides 100% renewable energy from local solar and battery storage systems.
In 2005, residents of Winter Park, Florida voted to authorize the city’s use of bonds to buy the local distribution facilities from the incumbent utility.
The state of Nebraska receives all of its electricity from publicly owned sources.
Wield Creative Finance Tools to Drive Investment and Reduce Capital Costs
Rollbacks of federal financial support have threatened the viability of many clean energy projects. State and local leaders can help keep projects alive and build new ones with creative financing tools. In some cases, this means taking a more active role in coordinating across public and private sector actors, while in others that means building entirely new administrative capacities to perform more ambitious financial transactions or act as a public developer.
In addition, the grid is facing new challenges that require massive investments. For example, recovery from and preparation for wildfires is inflating energy bills in the west. Gulf states are facing similar costs from hurricanes. States need creative finance tools to ensure that these costs do not continue to raise bills for regular people and small businesses.
Beyond merely acting as a source of capital, governments of every shape and size actively participate at every stage in the project development and planning lifecycle to bring down the total cost of projects. These include lowering financing costs, securing stable or catalytic financing, and providing an avenue to complement other functions the state is undertaking. Local governments can engage in public development functions, including through creative finance tools and engagement with community choice aggregators, rural electric cooperatives, and energy service companies.
Solutions
I. Empower development entities with the legal authority and staffing to pursue high priority projects (Governors, Legislatures, Local Leaders)
State leaders can help ensure that infrastructure authorities, city and county development corporations, or energy departments of a given jurisdiction have the relevant borrowing authority, ownership and operation powers, and partnerships capabilities to support project development.
To be successful, state financing entities or public developers need clarity and certainty on how projects they support can participate in electricity market operations, including whether projects can participate in utility procurement processes or interact with grid operator interconnection processes. State financing also must be coordinated with other grid planning processes.
Given the overlapping interests state and local economic development agencies may hold, this process will demand adequate staffing resources and may require significant stakeholder engagement with private sector actors, government officials, and others.
Legislators can write or amend enabling authorities to explicitly provide state and local entities with the financing, bonding, ownership, and partnership authorities necessary to support, finance, own, and/or operate projects. These authorities should include co-financing and co-development options to blend public and private support. Legislators can also make sure that these authorities are flexible and broad so that state development can be competitive with private developers.
Legislators can allow use of public financing tools to support certain projects. In particular, legislators can expand the bonding authority available to state agencies for use on clean energy projects.
Legislators can establish state and/or utility procurement targets for clean energy, storage, and grid projects and provide direction and clarity for state financing entities to service these procurements.
Governors can use their authority over appointments and interagency coordination to align disparate entities around specific tangible objectives.
Governors can draw on recent public private partnerships in the offshore wind industry to structure offtake, procurement, and other commercial activities with utilities and developers across a range of clean energy projects. State entities can seed virtual power plants, solar, wind, energy storage and other clean power projects that mutually derisk projects for both public and private developers alike.
Governors and legislators can provide expedited permitting and siting processes for publicly sponsored projects.
City and county officials can form project-specific entities or special purpose authorities to make projects financeable.
In New Mexico, the Renewable Energy Transmission Authority (RETA) was established in 2007 and was granted statutory power to exercise eminent domain to acquire property or rights of way for eligible renewable energy projects. This authority has been critical in overcoming fragmented land acquisition barriers.
The Connecticut Green Bank’s Solar Marketplace Assistance Program (Solar MAP) serves as a public developer to finance and build solar projects for K-12 schools, allowing the state to own the assets and sell power back to districts at a discount. While the Green Bank has acted as a public public developer in some form since 2014, projects from Solar MAP are projected to deliver tens of millions of dollars in savings all without incurring any upfront costs for districts.
In Colorado, SB 21-072 in 2021 created the Colorado Electric Transmission Authority as a special-purpose development authority granted power to issue bonds and corridor acquisition tools.
II. Use pooled loan funds like state bond banks to lower borrowing costs and build project pipelines (Governors, Legislatures, and Local Leaders)
Pooled borrowing authorities offer transaction efficiency and credit strength for cities, counties or small utilities paying the fixed costs of a standalone bond issuance by aggregating relatively modest projects into standardized pools. This reduces the issuance and underwriting costs, and can often enhance credit resulting in lower borrowing costs.
Bond banks are valuable in practice because they are a repeatable financing infrastructure that can be improved and expanded over time. Governors offices, county executives, and mayors can direct agencies to build a steady pipeline of eligible projects (using Requests for Information or direct engagement) and then work with relevant financing authorities to standardize project intake, selection, and reporting and make the whole process more repeatable.
Once local governments experience lower borrowing costs and faster execution through a standardized conduit, the model becomes politically sticky and easier to scale, especially when paired with complementary tools like revolving funds or credit enhancement that can serve smaller borrowers and accelerate project turnover.
Legislators in states that lack a bond bank can establish one capable of pooling local loans, issuing bonds, and relending the proceeds. They can further work to standardize project solicitation, underwriting, and closing cycles to ensure the institution creates a regular cadence.
Legislators in states that have a bond bank can expand eligible project types (to include clean energy projects and resilience priorities like building retrofits, microgrids, etc.) and create standard project templates.
Governors can work with state agencies to centralize the origination of bonds for a public developer in their state’s bond bank or otherwise help public developers and other financing agencies exercise their bonding authority.
Governors can make regular use of bond banking authority a priority by directing agencies to run a standing intake process, and appoint or empower relevant state personnel to highlight pooled lending as an innovative solution.
City and county officials can create a rolling inventory of eligible projects, bundle them into multi-jurisdiction project aggregators and engage with existing bond banks on technical assistance for project scoping and diligence.
Vermont’s Bond Bank issues bonds backed by repayments of its loans to individual municipalities, school districts, etc. and maintains a dedicated Municipal Climate Recovery Fund. The bank has the ability to backstop non-payment by municipal or county entities that fail to pay based on state funds allocated to municipal or district borrowers in what is known as an “intercept mechanism.”
Virginia Resource Authority’s Resilient Virginia Revolving Fund was established in 2022. Jointly administered with the state’s Department of Conservation and Recreation, the pooled borrowing platform provides financial assistance for flood-mitigation projects across the state.
III. Require energy utilities to supplement portions of their debt or equity with public bonds (Governors, Legislatures, and Local Leaders)
A unique characteristic of public development is that strategic capital deployment has the potential to derisk private investment. Mandating that utilities replace a portion of their high-cost equity with state backed public debt or revenue bonds optimizes the project’s capital stack, thereby reducing the average cost of capital and reducing the total financing costs for capital-intensive grid infrastructure. Investor-owned utilities typically finance large infrastructure projects through a mix of debt and equity with regulators guaranteeing a return on equity (ROE) to attract private investors. Because this ROE is significantly higher than the interest rates on public debt, requiring public bonds to supplement the capital stack can dramatically reduce the long-term costs that are ultimately passed on to ratepayers.
This mechanism leverages the state’s superior credit rating and tax-exempt status to fund the most expensive portions of development while leaving the utility to focus on its core competencies of construction and grid operation. Establishing a public financing facility in this way allows the public sector to act as a sponsor investor for projects of high public interest, such as interregional transmission lines. By providing lower cost debt, states can ensure that critical energy targets are met without placing an undue financial burden on households. This approach creates a more stable investment environment and allocates risks more effectively across public and private stakeholders.
Legislators can mandate investor-owned utilities make use of state-backed revenue bonds or other forms of public debt to finance high-priority capital investments such as grid resilience or interregional transmission.
Legislators can authorize state infrastructure banks or other financing authorities to act as sponsor investors and displace high cost equity of a project’s capital.
Governors can establish dedicated clean energy project finance working groups to examine the full scope of infrastructure financing tools needed to derisk capital investment in transmission, generation, distribution and other electricity assets.
Regulators and state energy offices can lower the costs passed along to ratepayers by integrating public financing facilities directly into RFP processes, allowing bidders to access lower-cost capital.
City and county officials can pass local resolutions advocating for a specific local utility project to be financed via public bond rather than traditional utility equity to ensure the lowest possible rate impact for their residents. A similar strategy can be pursued via written submission or intervention within PUC docket proceedings.
City and county officials can collaborate with state energy offices to identify projects that are ideal candidates for public debt supplements.
California’s 2025 law SB 254 establishes a state public financing facility (the Transmission Infrastructure Accelerator) to replace high-cost utility equity with lower-cost public debt for new transmission projects, directly reducing the ratepayer impact of CAISO’s multi-decade development plans. The law requires utilities to finance billions of dollars of grid hardening investments using bonds instead of utility equity financing, reducing costs for customers and preventing the utility from excessively profiting off of this set of expenditures.
Maine’s Clean Energy Financing Study recommends operationalizing state revenue bond authority and establishing a working group on large clean energy project finance to optimize the capital stack for clean energy and transmission projects.
IV. Develop greater public understanding about the development levers available to public or quasi-public entities (Governors, Legislatures, and Local Leaders)
Some financial functions like loan issuance, co-financing, and non-dilutive debt financing may be well known to state energy offices, green banks, and certain infrastructure authorities. But in general, public financing is hampered by a lack of clarity, information, and standardization of different agencies’ authorities.
States can maximize the impact of public resources by establishing clear financing authorities and responsibilities, providing state authorities with broad powers to flexibly support projects, ensure that public finance is prioritizing the right investments, and providing clear direction on how publicly sponsored projects support utility procurement or grid operator processes. In addition, standardizing state and local financing entities drives down costs by making processes more repeatable and can pave the way for more effective federal support in the future. By surfacing all the capabilities public entities currently have and may wish to develop in the future, policymakers and advocates can align on objectives to strengthen the public developer toolkit and bring clean energy projects closer to fruition.
Governors can inventory borrowing, contracting, and financing authorities and provide clear guidance on roles and responsibilities between agencies.
Governors and legislatures can require reporting on key performance metrics like deal volume, borrower participation, and time-to-close to help encourage institutionalization.
Governors and legislators can publish analysis and information on areas to focus energy project development and create special zones for the installation, procurement, manufacturing, or operation of energy projects of various kinds. These industrial zones could provide access to a variety of benefits: expedited permitting, siting, interconnection, specific public finance facilities, funds for resiliency + operation, and various other coordination benefits from other interested state agencies.
Legislatures can provide agencies with clear financing authorities, direction on what types of projects to support, and a broad set of tools to flexibly support projects.
City and county officials can examine if there are relevant state laws that require additional ordinance/resolution to use. Some tools to activate and then specify rules to create repeatable administrative playbooks.
Houston, Texas had to pass an authorizing city ordinance to activate a state program known as Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE). The program allows commercial and multifamily property owners to finance energy efficiency, renewable energy, and water conservation improvements and has invested over $540 million dollars statewide since its inception in 2016.
Montgomery County, Maryland created a green bank in 2016. In 2022, the county passed a statute to direct 10% of the county’s fuel tax revenue to the Montgomery County Green Bank each year. The green bank completed a new bus depot for EV buses in 2022 co-located with a 6.5 MW microgrid that can run independent of the local utility.
Colorado has an EPC program that lends against a project’s anticipated cost savings to finance building retrofits.
Gil’s Corner: A View from D.C. on Science and Tech Policy, Politics, and Power
We’re back with key updates from D.C.! Start with the weather which was as lovely as I can remember in the last decade, even if the landscape was dotted with more flashing lights and armored trucks than usual.
D.C. takes the cue from Congress and the city itself seems to recess and take its foot off the gas for those with government-related work. I hope everyone recharged sufficiently, because the break is over and there is much to do this fall – government funding, new and massive executive orders, and a whole lot of drama in between awaits us.
Executive Order on Federal Grantmaking
Political Appointees have the Power. The White House announced an Executive Order that would restructure the federal grantmaking process and affect how decisions are made regarding the distribution of billions of dollars in research grants. Now, all final grant award decisions across all agencies are to be made by political appointees, subject to their “independent judgment.”
Learn what this could mean for you from McDermott Will & Schulte.
Appropriations and an Uneasy Fiscal New Year’s Eve
Will we shut down? Congress will get right back to the arduous task of sorting out government funding for Fiscal Year 26 (FY26). We saw lots of progress on several of the 12 bills that constitute the government funding package. Even with a little dissent, Democrats and Republican appropriators alike are expressing a desire to pass the package by September 30 and avoid a dramatic shutdown fight.
Spending Problems. There is a lot of time between now and then, however, and discord is brewing as significant concerns around how the Administration is using (and most importantly not using) funding that Congress has appropriated could have a major impact on whether a final bill is passed.
OMB Releases Funds, Now they Must be Spent. OMB has apparently released its hold on much of the FY25 funding for NIH, NSF, and other research agencies it had blocked in recent months. It is of utmost urgency to ensure those funds are obligated before Sept 30, 2025 (otherwise the funds get returned to the Treasury).
➡️ Those awaiting to receive grants can most effectively ensure this by reaching out to their congressional delegations to ask for assistance in securing release of the research funding.
Confirmations Deal. Majority Leader Thune (R-SD), Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and the White House have been negotiating over an agreement that would trade Democrats’ consent to speed up Trump’s appointee confirmations in exchange for the administration agreeing to unfreeze funding for certain agencies or other policy concessions. This could continue to have a part to play in any final deal.
Tracker. Keep tabs on appropriations with the AAAS Tracker, including updates from the end of July.
Higher Ed
Admissions Transparency. President Trump issued the latest presidential memorandum regarding his oversight of higher education, titled “Ensuring Transparency in Higher Education Admissions” (fact sheet). According to the memo, the Supreme Court has “definitively held that consideration of race in higher education admissions violates students rights” but a “persistent lack of available data” combined with “overt and hidden racial proxies” caused further “concerns about whether race is actually used in process.” Check out a breakdown.
The U.S. Dept. of Justice released guidance for recipients of federal funding regarding unlawful discrimination. Explainer and more reading here.
Research Security. The National Science Foundation announced a new SECURE Center with a newsletter that covers changes in federal research security policies and aggregates news articles. Sign up to track this ever-evolving space.
Additionally, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said it has fired 70 foreign contract researchers after a national security review intended to secure the U.S. food supply from adversaries including China, Russia, North Korea and Iran.
Settlements. What does the Columbia University settlement mean for the rest of higher education? Will Creeley, legal director of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, said that, in addition to admission practices, this settlement and its “blatant disregard for federal law” will upend academia’s core commitment to fostering First Amendment rights.
What do we do? A plea from former Secretary of Education Arne Duncan – The Only Hope Is Total and Unrelenting Resistance
Science and Tech
AI Action Plan. FAS’s brilliant AI team at the Federation of American Scientists unpack the AI Action Plan. Importantly, it notes that, “Despite the AI Action Plan’s ambitious proposals, it will remain aspirational without funding, proper staffing, and clear timelines.”
States’ Role. An interesting read from The Atlantic on university research and states. “It will take time for research universities to find a new long-term financial model that allows science and medicine to continue advancing—a model much less dependent on the federal government. But right now universities don’t have time.”
Manufacturing. Manufacturing is the third largest contributor to American GDP. What’s the status? SSTI takes a county-specific look.
USDA Reorganization
USDA out of DC. The US Department of Agriculture is getting an unprecedented makeover as Secretary Rollins aims to decentralize its operations across the country. That includes functions beyond agriculture such as important rural development offices and programs like wildfire management and more.
Indirect Costs
Dr. Kelvin Droegemeier and the Joint Association Group (JAG) have developed an impressive reimagining on Indirect Cost modeling, dubbed the Financial Accountability in Research (FAIR) Model. Find the details here, and familiarize yourself! For you visual learners, check out their webinar.
According to JAG, the Financial Accountability in Research (FAIR) model is a new approach to increase transparency, accountability, and clarity in how federal research funding is spent. The goal of FAIR is to ensure continued American leadership globally in research and innovation while delivering maximum benefit to American taxpayers. FAIR was developed with extensive input and feedback from a broad array of public and private research institutions, academic medical centers, independent research institutes, hospitals, private foundations, and private companies
The complete upheaval around indirect costs policies from the Administration has many research institutions on red alert. The thoughtful, comprehensive response from JAG has been presented to the Administration and Congress, even seeing language included in the current appropriations bills.
JAG is calling for support from the research community around the FAIR model – the future of the American research enterprise could be at risk without unity and vocal endorsement to the government.
We Need to Talk about Impoundment
Ok, I’ll bite, what is impoundment?
Our friends at the Center for Budget Policy and Priorities and other smart budget teams, like at the Bipartisan Policy Center, are doing excellent work schooling us on this urgent, developing issue. Please do go learn more because this is not going away and it is truly as big a deal as it sounds.
Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought is the name on the lips of many in DC this month as the end of the fiscal year approaches and his relentless plan to hack and disrupt the government funding process hits full tilt, and, as some argue, goes beyond the law.
Deferrals, additional approvals, apportionment hold ups – these are all wonky budget actions that are being weaponized for the Executive Branch to effectively “impound” government funding approved by Congress. That’s illegal.
Slow-rolling Spending – is it Impoundment?
GAO thinks so. On top of the significant issues with receiving their funding in the first place or even getting it clawed back by rescissions, many agencies are facing bureaucratic roadblocks to spending the funding they do have and risk ending the fiscal year (9/30) with unspent funds.
“The administration appears to be preparing to run the clock out. To me, it’s clearly a violation of Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution. It’s fundamental to the way the government is supposed to operate.”- G. William Hoagland of the Bipartisan Policy Center and former Republican aide to the Senate Budget Committee.
“It feels like temporary impoundment,” an Army Corps of Engineers employee said.
What does the Administration have to say?
Rachel Cauley, a spokeswoman for the Office of Management and Budget, said in a statement that, “impoundments remain an option at the president’s disposal.”
If all of this does indeed amount to illegal impoundment then do not expect that to deter the Administration. In response to GAO challenging this practice (and its done so dozens of times), Russel Vought argued that the Impoundment Control Act, the law at issue now, is unconstitutional.
Until Next Time!
Is Gil Corner working for you? How can it be more useful? As we develop this new function in the newsletter, we want your thoughts! Email Gil directly at GRuiz@FAS.Org and let me know what you’d like to see more (or less) of, and what topics are interesting you the most.
Agenda for an American Renewal
Imperative for a Renewed Economic Paradigm
So far, President Trump’s tariff policies have generated significant turbulence and appear to lack a coherent strategy. His original tariff schedule included punitive tariffs on friends and foes alike on the mistaken basis that trade deficits are necessarily the result of an unhealthy relationship. Although they have been gradually paused or reduced since April 2, the uneven rollout (and subsequent rollback) of tariffs continues to generate tremendous uncertainty for policymakers, consumers, and businesses alike. This process has weakened America’s geopolitical standing by encouraging other countries to seek alternative trade, financial, and defense arrangements.
However, notwithstanding the uncoordinated approach to date, President Trump’s mistaken instinct for protectionism belies an underlying truth: that American manufacturing communities have not fared well in the last 25 years and that China’s dominance in manufacturing poses an ever-growing threat to national security. After China’s admission to the WTO in 2001, its share of global manufacturing grew from less than 10% to over 35% today. At the same time, America’s share of manufacturing shrank from almost 25% to less than 15%, with employment shrinking from more than 17 million at the turn of the century to under 13 million today. These trends also create a deep geopolitical vulnerability for America, as in the event of a conflict with China, we would be severely outmatched in our ability to build critical physical goods: for example, China produces over 80% of the world’s batteries, over 90% of consumer drones, and has a 200:1 shipbuilding capacity advantage over the U.S. While not all manufacturing is geopolitically valuable, the erosion in strategic industries, which went hand-in-hand with the loss of key manufacturing skills in recent decades, poses potential long-term challenges for America.
In addition to its growing manufacturing dominance, China is now competing with America’s preeminence in technology leadership, having leveraged many of the skills gained in science, engineering, and manufacturing for lower-value add industries to compete in higher-end sectors. DeepSeek demonstrated that China can natively generate high-quality artificial intelligence models, an area in which the U.S. took its lead for granted. Meanwhile, BYD rocketed past Tesla in EV sales and accounted for 22% of global sales in 2024 as compared to Tesla’s 10%. China has also been operating an extensive satellite-enabled secure quantum communications channel since 2016, preventing others from eavesdropping.
China’s growing leadership in advanced research may give it a sustained edge beyond its initial gains: according to one recent analysis of frontier research publications across 64 critical technologies, global leadership has shifted dramatically to China, which now leads in 57 research domains. These are not recent developments: they have been part of a series of five year plans, the most well known of which is Made in China 2025, giving China an edge in many critical technologies that will continue to grow if not addressed by an equally determined American response.
An Integrated Innovation, Economic Foreign Policy, and Community Development Approach
Despite China’s growing challenge and recent self-inflicted damage to America’s economic and geopolitical relationships, America still retains many ingrained advantages. The U.S. still has the largest economy, the deepest public and private capital pools for promising companies and technologies, and the world’s leading universities; it has the most advanced military, continues to count most of the world’s other leading armed forces as formal treaty allies, and remains the global reserve currency. Ordinary Americans have benefited greatly from these advantages in the form of access to cutting edge products and cheaper goods that increase their effective purchasing power and quality of life – notwithstanding Secretary Bessent’s statements to the contrary.
The U.S. would be wise to leverage its privileged position in high-end innovation and in global financial markets to build “industries of the future.” However, the next economic and geopolitical paradigm must be genuinely equitable, especially to domestic communities that have been previously neglected or harmed by globalization. For these communities, policies such as the now-defunct Trade Adjustment Assistance program were too slow and too reactive to help workers displaced by the “China Shock,” which is estimated to have caused up to 2.4 million direct and indirect job losses.
Although jobs in trade-affected communities were eventually “replaced,” the jobs that came after were disproportionately lower-earning roles, accrued largely to individuals who had college degrees, and were taken by new labor force entrants rather than providing new opportunities for those who had originally been displaced. Moreover, as a result of ineffective policy responses, this replacement took over a decade and has contributed to heinous effects: look no further than the rate at which “deaths of despair” for white individuals without a college degree skyrocketed after 2000.
Nonetheless, surrendering America’s hard-won advantages in technology and international commerce, especially in the face of a growing challenge from China, would be an existential error. Rather, our goal is to address the shortcomings of previous policy approaches to the negative externalities caused by globalization. Previous approaches have focused on maximizing growth and redistributing the gains, but in practice, America failed to do either by underinvesting in the foundational policies that enable both. Thus, we are proposing a two-pronged approach that focuses on spurring cutting-edge technologies, growing novel industries, and enhancing production capabilities while investing in communities in a way that provides family-supporting, upwardly mobile jobs as well as critical childcare, education, housing, and healthcare services. By investing in broad-based prosperity and productivity, we can build a more equitable and dynamic economy.
Our agenda is intentionally broad (and correspondingly ambitious) rather than narrow in focus on manufacturing communities, even though current discourse is focused on trade. This is not simply a “political bargain” that provides greater welfare or lip-service concessions to hollowed-out communities in exchange for a return to the prior geoeconomic paradigm. Rather, we genuinely believe that economic dynamism which is led by an empowered middle-class worker, whether they work in manufacturing or in a service industry, is essential to America’s future prosperity and national security – one in which economic outcomes are not determined by parental income and one where black-white disparities are closed in far less than the current pace of 150+ years.
Thus, the ideas and agenda presented here are neither traditionally “liberal” nor “conservative,” “Democrat” nor “Republican.” Instead, we draw upon the intellectual traditions of both segments of the political spectrum. We agree with Ezra Klein’s and Derek Thompson’s vision in Abundance for a technology-enabled future in which America remembers how to build; at the same time, we take seriously Oren Cass’s view in The Once and Future Worker that the dignity of work is paramount and that public policy should empower the middle-class worker. What we offer in the sections below is our vision for a renewed America that crosses traditional policy boundaries to create an economic and political paradigm that works for all.
Policy Recommendations
Investing in American Innovation
Given recent trends, it is clear that there is no better time to re-invigorate America’s innovation edge by investing in R&D to create and capture “industries of the future,” re-shoring capital and expertise, and working closely with allies to expand our capabilities while safeguarding those technologies that are critical to our security. These investments will enable America to grow its economic potential, providing fertile ground for future shared prosperity. We emphasize five key components to renewing America’s technological edge and manufacturing base:
Invest in R&D. Increase federally funded R&D, which has declined from 1.8% of GDP in the 1960s to 0.6% of GDP today. Of the $200 billion federal R&D budget, just $16 billion is allocated to non-healthcare basic science, an area in which the government is better suited to fund than the private sector due to positive spillover effects from public funding. A good start is fully funding the CHIPS and Science Act, which authorized over $200 billion over 10 years for competitiveness-enhancing R&D investments that Congress has yet to appropriate. Funding these efforts will be critical to developing and winning the race for future-defining technologies, such as next-gen battery chemistries, quantum computing, and robotics, among others.
Capability-Building. Develop a coordinated mechanism for supporting translation and early commercialization of cutting-edge technologies. Otherwise, the U.S. will cede scale-up in “industries of the future” to competitors: for example, Exxon developed the lithium-ion battery, but lost commercialization to China due to the erosion of manufacturing skills in America that are belatedly being rebuilt. However, these investments are not intended to be a top-down approach that selects winners and losers: rather, America should set a coordinated list of priorities (leveraging roadmaps such as the DoD’s Critical Technology Areas), foster competition amongst many players, and then provide targeted, lightweight financial support to industry clusters and companies that bubble to the top.
Financial support could take the form of a federally-funded strategic investment fund (SIF) that partners with private sector actors by providing catalytic funding (e.g., first-loss loans). This fund would focus on bridging the financing gap in the “valley of death” as companies transition from prototype to first-of-a-kind / “nth-of-a-kind” commercial product. In contrast to previous attempts at industrial policy, such as the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) or CHIPS Act, they should have minimal compliance burdens and focus on rapidly deploying capital to communities and organizations that have proven to possess a durable competitive advantage.
Encourage Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). Provide tax incentives and matching funds (potentially from the SIF) for companies who build manufacturing plants in America. This will bring critical expertise that domestic manufacturers can adopt, especially in industries that require deep technical expertise that America would need to redevelop (e.g., shipbuilding). By striking investment deals with foreign partners, America can “learn from the best” and subsequently improve upon them domestically. In some cases, it may be more efficient to “share” production, with certain components being manufactured or assembled abroad, while America ramps up its own capabilities.
For example, in shipbuilding, the U.S. could focus on developing propulsion, sensor, and weapon systems, while allies such as South Korea and Japan, who together build almost as much tonnage as China, convert some shipyards to defense production and send technical experts to accelerate development of American shipyards. In exchange, they would receive select additional access to cutting-edge systems and financially benefit from investing in American shipbuilding facilities and supply chains.
Immigration. America has long been described as a “nation of immigrants.” Their role in innovation is impossible to deny: 46% of companies in the Fortune 500 were founded by immigrants and accounted for 24% of all founders; they are 19% of the overall STEM workforce but account for nearly 60% of doctorates in computer science, mathematics, and engineering. Rather than spurning them, the U.S. should attract more highly educated immigrants by removing barriers to working in STEM roles and offering accelerated paths to citizenship. At the same time, American policymakers should acknowledge the challenges caused by illegal immigration. One such solution is to pass legislation such as the Border Control Act of 2024, which had bipartisan support and increased border security, supplemented by a “points-based” immigration system such as Canada’s which emphasizes educational credentials and in-country work experience.
Create Targeted Fences. Employ tariffs and export controls to defend nascent, strategically important industries such as advanced chips, fusion energy, or quantum communications. However, rather than employing these indiscriminately, tariffs and export controls should be focused on ensuring that only America and its allies have access to cutting-edge technologies that shape the global economic and security landscape. They are not intended to keep foreign competition out wholesale; rather, they should ensure that burgeoning technology developers gain sufficient scale and traction by accelerating through the “learn curve.”
Building Strong Communities
Strong communities are the foundation of a strong workforce, without which new industries will not thrive beyond a small number of established tech hubs. However, strengthening American communities will require the country to address the core needs of a family-sustaining life. Childcare, education, housing, and healthcare are among the largest budget items for families and have been proven time and again to be critical to economic mobility. Nevertheless, they are precisely the areas in which costs have skyrocketed the most, as has been frequently chronicled by the American Enterprise Institute’s “Chart of the Century.” These essential services have been underinvested in for far too long, creating painful shortages for communities that need them most. As such, addressing these issues form the core pillars of our domestic reinvestment plan. Addressing them means grappling with the underlying drivers of their cost and scarcity. These include issues of state capacity, regulatory and licensing barriers, and low productivity growth in service-heavy care sectors. A new policy agenda that addresses the fundamental supply-side issues is needed to reshape the contours of this debate.
Expand Childcare. Inadequate childcare costs the U.S. economy $122 billion in lost wages and productivity as otherwise capable workers, especially women, are forced to reduce hours or leave the labor force. Access is further exacerbated by supply shortages: more than half the population lives in a “childcare desert,” where there are more than three times as many children as licensed slots. Addressing these shortages will alleviate the affordability issue, enabling workers to stay in the workforce and allow families to move up the income ladder.
Fund Early Education. Investments in early childhood education have been demonstrated to generate compelling ROI, with high-quality studies such as the Perry preschool study demonstrating up to $7 – $12 of social return for every $1 invested. While these gains are broadly applicable across the country, they would make an even greater difference in helping to rebuild manufacturing communities by making it easier to grow and sustain families. Given the return on investment and impact on social mobility, American policymakers should consider investing in universal pre-K.
Invest in Workforce Training and Community Colleges. The cost of a four-year college education now exceeds $38K per year, indicating a clear need for cheaper BA degrees but also credible alternatives. At the same time, community colleges can be reimagined and better funded to enable them to focus on high-paying jobs in sectors with critical labor shortages, many of which are in or adjacent to “industries of the future.” Some of these roles, such as IT specialists and skilled tradespeople, are essential to manufacturing. Others, such as nursing and allied healthcare roles, will help build and sustain strong communities.
Build Housing Stock. America has a shortage of 3.2 million homes. Simply put, the country needs to build more houses to address the cost of living and enable Americans to work and raise families. While housing policy is generally decided at lower levels of government, the federal government should provide grants and other incentives to states and municipalities to defray the cost of developing affordable housing; in exchange, state and local jurisdictions should relax zoning regulations to enable more multi-family and high-density single-family housing.
Expand Healthcare Access. American healthcare is plagued with many problems, including uneven access and shortages in primary care. For example, the U.S. has 3.1 primary care physicians (PCPs) per 10,000 people, whereas Germany has 7.1 and France has 9.0. As such, the federal government should focus on expanding the number of healthcare practitioners (especially primary care physicians and nurses), building a physical presence for essential healthcare services in underserved regions, and incentivizing the development of digital care solutions that deliver affordable care.
Allocating Funds to Invest in Tomorrow’s Growth
Investment Requirements
While we view these policies as essential to America’s reinvigoration, they also represent enormous investments that must be paid for at a time when fiscal constraints are likely to tighten. To create a sense of the size of the financial requirements and trade-offs required, we lay out each of the key policy prescriptions above and use bipartisan proposals wherever possible, many of which have been scored by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) or another reputable institution or agency. Where this is not possible, we created estimates based on key policy goals to be accomplished. Although trade deals and targeted tariffs are likely to have some budget impact, we did not evaluate them given multiple countervailing forces and political uncertainties (e.g., currency impacts).
Potential Pay-Fors
Given the budgetary requirements of these proposals, we looked for opportunities to prune the federal budget. The CBO laid out a set of budgetary options that collectively could save several trillion over the next decade. In laying out the potential pay-fors, we used two approaches that focused on streamlining mandatory spending and optimizing tax revenues in an economically efficient manner. Our first approach is to include budgetary options that eliminate unnecessary spending that are distortionary in nature or are unlikely to have a meaningful direct impact on the population that they are trying to serve (e.g., kickback payments to state health plans). Our second approach is to include budgetary options in which the burden would fall upon higher-earning populations (e.g., raising the cap on payroll and Social Security taxes).
As the table below shows, there is a menu of options available to policymakers that raise funding well in excess of the required investment amounts above, allowing them to pick and choose which are most economically efficient and politically viable. In addition, they can modify many of these options to reduce the size or magnitude of the effect of the policy (e.g., adjust the point at which Social Security benefits for “high earners” is tapered or raise capital gains by 1% instead of 2%). While some of these proposals are potentially controversial, there is a clear and pressing need to reexamine America’s foundational policy assumptions without expanding the deficit, which is already more than 6% of GDP.
Conclusion
America is in need of a new economic paradigm that renews and refreshes rather than dismantles its hard-won geopolitical and technological advantages. Trump’s tariffs, should they be fully enacted, would be a self-defeating act that would damage America’s economy while leaving it more vulnerable, not less, to rivals and adversaries. However, we also recognize that the previous free trade paradigm was not truly equitable and did not do enough to support manufacturing communities and their core strengths. We believe that our two-pronged approach of investing in American innovation alongside our allies along with critical community investments in childcare, higher education, housing, and healthcare bridges the gap and provides a framework for re-orienting the economy towards a more prosperous, fair, and secure future.
Federation of American Scientists Announces Arrival of our Inaugural Cohort of Senior Fellows to Advance Audacious Policy that Benefits Society
Fellows Brown, Janani-Flores, Krishnaswami, Ross and Vinton will work on projects spanning government modernization, clean energy, workforce development, and economic resiliency
Washington, D.C. – March 17, 2025 – Today our first cohort of Senior Fellows join the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), a non-partisan, nonprofit science think tank dedicated to developing evidence-based policies to address national challenges. These senior-level scientists and technologists represent a diverse group of thinkers and doers with deep experience across multiple fields who have committed to developing policy solutions to specific problems. The fellows were selected through a competitive process of project proposals, and will work in their area of expertise independently and collaboratively with FAS staff for six months.
“We are leaning into the reality of the present moment and bringing exceptional talent to join forces with our staff and the wider science and policy community to develop new policy ideas that solve specific and difficult societal challenges,” says Daniel Correa, CEO of the Federation of American Scientists.
Senior Fellows – 2025 Cohort
The inaugural cohort of senior fellows and their primary areas of focus are:
Quincy K. Brown served as Director of Space STEM and Workforce Policy on the National Space Council in the White House Office of the Vice President. She will design a participatory, strategic foresight process to identify solutions to the most pressing challenges we face in the evolving science and technology ecosystem. She will leverage data-driven insights, strategic partnerships, and evidence-based research to shape national policy, scale innovative initiatives, and cultivate cross-sector collaborations.
Maryam Janani-Flores served as the Chief of Staff of the U.S. Economic Development Administration at the Department of Commerce, where she oversaw policy, strategy, and operations for a $5 billion grant portfolio. She will focus on broad-based participation in innovation ecosystems by placing recently departed federal scientists, engineers, and technologists in innovation hubs nationwide to build inclusive, durable innovation ecosystems.
Arjun Krishnaswami served in the Biden-Harris Administration as the Senior Policy Advisor for Clean Energy Infrastructure in the White House. He will take lessons learned at the federal level to elicit adoption of clean technology at the state level, modernizing our nation’s energy grid so that communities across the country can benefit from the greater resiliency, lower costs, and cleaner air that follow from clean energy upgrades.
Denice Ross, former U.S. Chief Data Scientist and Deputy U.S. CTO, will prototype a Federal Data Use Case Repository for documenting and sharing how people across the nation use priority federal datasets from many agencies. Her project is a front-line effort to protect the continued flow of federal data.
Merici Vinton served as a Senior Advisor to IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel and prior to that was an original architect of the Direct File service. She will focus on technology innovation to deliver public services in a post “digital services” era, making institutions more relevant and responsive.
“This is a time where we need solutions, and these senior fellows bring with them the expertise, motivation and a vision for how to use policy as a tool to affect meaningful, positive change,” says Dr. Jedidah Isler, Chief Science Officer at FAS.
She continues: “These senior fellows have years of hands-on experience to draw upon to imagine, plan, and develop ambitious science and technology policy. We look forward to a bidirectional flow of expertise between senior fellows and our staff to deliver actionable policy ideas that will serve the public using the technical tools of today and emerging technology of tomorrow. They give me hope that we can co-create a future that provides safety, access and prosperity for all.”
Role of Senior Fellows at FAS
Senior fellows will work independently to develop and refine their policy plans over the next six months. All of the proposals are ambitious; to reach their desired outcomes, fellows will collaborate with a wide range of stakeholders in the science and policy communities, seeking to understand and implement feedback from evidence-based datasets, specialized experts, people with lived experience, and ultimately, from the people whom their policy could impact.
During the course of this policy development senior fellows will have access to FAS resources and full-time staff to ensure these ideas can be realized.
Senior fellows will be an extension of the wide range of scientific and technical expertise housed within FAS – ranging from nuclear weapons to climate science to emerging technologies – one of the country’s oldest science policy think tanks.
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About FAS
The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) works to advance progress on a broad suite of contemporary issues where science, technology, and innovation policy can deliver transformative impact, and seeks to ensure that scientific and technical expertise have a seat at the policymaking table. Established in 1945 by scientists in response to the atomic bomb, FAS continues to bring scientific rigor and analysis to address national challenges. More information about FAS work at fas.org.
Driving Product Model Development with the Technology Modernization Fund
The Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) currently funds multiyear technology projects to help agencies improve their service delivery. However, many agencies abdicate responsibility for project outcomes to vendors, lacking the internal leadership and project development teams necessary to apply a product model approach focused on user needs, starting small, learning what works, and making adjustments as needed.
To promote better outcomes, TMF could make three key changes to help agencies shift from simply purchasing static software to acquiring ongoing capabilities that can meet their long-term mission needs: (1) provide education and training to help agencies adopt the product model; (2) evaluate investments based on their use of effective product management and development practices; and (3) fund the staff necessary to deliver true modernization capacity.
Challenge and Opportunity
Technology modernization is a continual process of addressing unmet needs, not a one-time effort with a defined start and end. Too often, when agencies attempt to modernize, they purchase “static” software, treating it like any other commodity, such as computers or cars. But software is fundamentally different. It must continuously evolve to keep up with changing policies, security demands, and customer needs.
Presently, agencies tend to rely on available procurement, contracting, and project management staff to lead technology projects. However, it is not enough to focus on the art of getting things done (project management); it is also critically important to understand the art of deciding what to do (product management). A product manager is empowered to make real-time decisions on priorities and features, including deciding what not to do, to ensure the final product effectively meets user needs. Without this role, development teams typically march through a vast, undifferentiated, unprioritized list of requirements, which is how information technology (IT) projects result in unwieldy failures.
By contrast, the product model fosters a continuous cycle of improvement, essential for effective technology modernization. It empowers a small initial team with the right skills to conduct discovery sprints, engage users from the outset and throughout the process, and continuously develop, improve, and deliver value. This approach is ultimately more cost effective, results in continuously updated and effective software, and better meets user needs.
However, transitioning to the product model is challenging. Agencies need more than just infrastructure and tools to support seamless deployment and continuous software updates – they also need the right people and training. A lean team of product managers, user researchers, and service designers who will shape the effort from the outset can have an enormous impact on reducing costs and improving the effectiveness of eventual vendor contracts. Program and agency leaders, who truly understand the policy and operational context, may also require training to serve effectively as “product owners.” In this role, they work closely with experienced product managers to craft and bring to life a compelling product vision.
These internal capacity investments are not expensive relative to the cost of traditional IT projects in government, but they are currently hard to make. Placing greater emphasis on building internal product management capacity will enable the government to more effectively tackle the root causes that lead to legacy systems becoming problematic in the first place. By developing this capacity, agencies can avoid future costly and ineffective “modernization” efforts.
Plan of Action
The General Services Administration’s Technology Modernization Fund plays a crucial role in helping government agencies transition from outdated legacy systems to modern, secure, and efficient technologies, strengthening the government’s ability to serve the public. However, changes to TMF’s strategy, policy, and practice could incentivize the broader adoption of product model approaches and make its investments more impactful.
The TMF should shift from investments in high-cost, static technologies that will not evolve to meet future needs towards supporting the development of product model capabilities within agencies. This requires a combination of skilled personnel, technology, and user-centered approaches. Success should be measured not just by direct savings in technology but by broader efficiencies, such as improvements in operational effectiveness, reductions in administrative burdens, and enhanced service delivery to users.
While successful investments may result in lower costs, the primary goal should be to deliver greater value by helping agencies better fulfill their missions. Ultimately, these changes will strengthen agency resilience, enabling them to adapt, scale, and respond more effectively to new challenges and conditions.
Recommendation 1. The Technology Modernization Board, responsible for evaluating proposals, should:
- Assess future investments based on the applicant’s demonstrated competencies and capacities in product ownership and management, as well as their commitment to developing these capabilities. This includes assessing proposed staffing models to ensure the right teams are in place.
- Expand assessment criteria for active and completed projects beyond cost savings, to include measurements of improved mission delivery, operational efficiencies, resilience, and adaptability.
Recommendation 2. The TMF Program Management Office, responsible for stewarding investments from start to finish, should:
- Educate and train agencies applying for funds on how to adopt and sustain the product model.
- Work with the General Services Administration’s 18F to incorporate TMF project successes and lessons learned into a continuously updated product model playbook for government agencies that includes guidance on the key roles and responsibilities needed to successfully own and manage products in government.
- Collaborate with the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to ensure that agencies have efficient and expedited pathways for acquiring the necessary talent, utilizing appropriate assessments to identify and onboard skilled individuals.
Recommendation 3. Congress should:
- Encourage agencies to set up their own working capital funds under the authorities outlined in the TMF legislation.
- Explore the barriers to product model funding in the current budgeting and appropriations processes for the federal government as a whole and develop proposals for fitting them to purpose.
- Direct OPM to reduce procedural barriers that hinder swift and effective hiring.
Conclusion
The TMF should leverage its mandate to shift agencies towards a capabilities-first mindset. Changing how the program educates, funds, and assesses agencies will build internal capacity and deliver continuous improvement. This approach will lead to better outcomes, both in the near and long terms, by empowering agencies to adapt and evolve their capabilities to meet future challenges effectively.
This action-ready policy memo is part of Day One 2025 — our effort to bring forward bold policy ideas, grounded in science and evidence, that can tackle the country’s biggest challenges and bring us closer to the prosperous, equitable and safe future that we all hope for whoever takes office in 2025 and beyond.
PLEASE NOTE (February 2025): Since publication several government websites have been taken offline. We apologize for any broken links to once accessible public data.
Congress established TMF in 2018 “to improve information technology, and to enhance cybersecurity across the federal government” through multiyear technology projects. Since then, more than $1 billion has been invested through the fund across dozens of federal agencies in four priority areas.
Environmental Assessment Reveals New Details About the Air Force’s ICBM Replacement Plan
Any time a US federal agency proposes a major action that “has the potential to cause significant effects on the natural or human environment,” they must complete an Environmental Impact Statement, or EIS. An EIS typically addresses potential disruptions to water supplies, transportation, socioeconomics, geology, air quality, and other factors in great detail––meaning that one can usually learn a lot about the scale and scope of a federal program by examining its Environmental Impact Statement.
What does all this have to do with nuclear weapons, you ask?
Well, given that the Air Force’s current plan to modernize its intercontinental ballistic missile force involves upgrading hundreds of underground and aboveground facilities, it appears that these actions have been deemed sufficiently “disruptive” to trigger the production of an EIS.
To that end, the Air Force recently issued a Notice of Intent to begin the EIS process for its Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) program––the official name of the ICBM replacement program. Usually, this notice is coupled with the announcement of open public hearings, where locals can register questions or complaints with the scope of the program. These hearings can be influential; in the early 1980s, tremendous public opposition during the EIS hearings in Nevada and Utah ultimately contributed to the cancellation of the mobile MX missile concept. Unfortunately, in-person EIS hearings for the GBSD have been cancelled due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic; however, they’ve been replaced with something that might be even better.
The Air Force has substituted its in-person meetings for an uncharacteristically helpful and well-designed website––gbsdeis.com––where people can go to submit comments for EIS consideration (before November 13th!). But aside from the website being just a place for civic engagement and cute animal photos, it is also a wonderful repository for juicy––and sometimes new––details about the GBSD program itself.
The website includes detailed overviews of the GBSD-related work that will take place at the three deployment bases––F.E. Warren (located in Wyoming, but responsible for silos in Wyoming, Colorado, and Nebraska), Malmstrom (Montana), and Minot (North Dakota)––plus Hill Air Force Base in Utah (where maintenance and sustainment operations will take place), the Utah Test and Training Range (where missile storage, decommissioning, and disposal activities will take place), Camp Navajo in Arizona (where rocket boosters and motors will be stored), and Camp Guernsey in Wyoming (where additional training operations will take place).
Taking a closer look at these overviews offers some expanded details about where, when, and for how long GBSD-related construction will be taking place at each location.
For example, previous reporting seemed to indicate that all 450 Minuteman Launch Facilities (which contain the silos themselves) and “up to 45” Missile Alert Facilities (each of which consists of a buried and hardened Launch Control Center and associated above- or below-ground support buildings) would need to be upgraded to accommodate the GBSD. However, the GBSD EIS documents now seem to indicate that while all 450 Launch Facilities will be upgraded as expected, only eight of the 15 Missile Alert Facilities (MAF) per missile field would be “made like new,” while the remainder would be “dismantled and the real property would be disposed of.”
Currently, each Missile Alert Facility is responsible for a group of 10 Launch Facilities; however, the decision to only upgrade eight MAFs per wing––while dismantling the rest––could indicate that each MAF could be responsible for up to 18 or 19 separate Launch Facilities once GBSD becomes operational. If this is true, then this near-doubling of each MAF’s responsibilities could have implications for the future vulnerability of the ICBM force’s command and control systems.
The GBSD EIS website also offers a prospective construction timeline for these proposed upgrades. The website notes that it will take seven months to modernize each Launch Facility, and 12 months to modernize each Missile Alert Facility. Once construction begins, which could be as early as 2023, the Air Force has a very tight schedule in order to fully deploy the GBSD by 2036: they have to finish converting one Launch Facility per week for nine years. It is expected that construction and deployment will begin at F.E. Warren between 2023 and 2031, followed by Malmstrom between 2025 and 2033, and finally Minot between 2027 and 2036.
Although it is still unclear exactly what the new Missile Alert Facilities and Launch Facilities will look like, the EIS documents helpfully offer some glimpses of the GBSD-related construction that will take place at each of the three Air Force bases over the coming years.
In addition to the temporary workforce housing camps and construction staging areas that will be established for each missile wing, each base is expected to receive several new training, storage, and maintenance facilities. With a single exception––the construction of a new reentry system and reentry vehicle maintenance facility at Minot––all of the new facilities will be built outside of the existing Weapons Storage Areas, likely because these areas are expected to be replaced as well. As we reported in September, construction has already begun at F.E. Warren on a new underground Weapons Generation Facility to replace the existing Weapons Storage Area, and it is expected that similar upgrades are planned for the other ICBM bases.
Finally, the EIS documents also provide an overview of how and where Minuteman III disposal activities will take place. Upon removal from their silos, the Minutemen IIIs will be transported to their respective hosting bases––F.E. Warren, Malmstrom, or Minot––for temporary storage. They will then be transported to Hill Air Force Base, the Utah Test and Training Range (UTTR), or Camp Najavo, in Arizona. It is expected that the majority of the rocket motors will be stored at either Hill AFB or UTTR until their eventual destruction at UTTR, while non-motor components will be demilitarized and disposed of at Hill AFB. To that end, five new storage igloos and 11 new storage igloos will be constructed at Hill AFB and UTTR, respectively. If any rocket motors are stored at Camp Navajo, they will utilize existing storage facilities.
After the completion of public scoping on November 13th (during which anyone can submit comments to the Air Force via Google Form), the next public milestone for the GBSD’s EIS process will occur in spring 2022, when the Air Force will solicit public comments for their Draft EIS. When that draft is released, we should learn even more about the GBSD program, and particularly about how it impacts––and is impacted by––the surrounding environment. These particular aspects of the program are growing in significance, as it is becoming increasingly clear that the US nuclear deterrent––and particularly the ICBM fleet deployed across the Midwest––is uniquely vulnerable to climate catastrophe. Given that the GBSD program is expected to cost nearly $264 billion through 2075, Congress should reconsider whether it is an appropriate use of public funds to recapitalize on elements of the US nuclear arsenal that could ultimately be rendered ineffective by climate change.
Additional background information:
- United States nuclear forces, 2020
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Construction of New Underground Nuclear Warhead Facility At Warren AFB
This publication was made possible by generous contributions from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the New Land Foundation, the Ploughshares Fund, and the Prospect Hill Foundation. The statements made and views expressed are solely the responsibility of the author.
Image sources: Air Force Global Strike Command. 2020. “Environmental Impact Statement for the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent Deployment and Minuteman III Decommissioning and Disposal: Public Scoping Materials.”
The Evolution of the Senate Arms Control Observer Group
In March 2013, the Senate voted down an amendment offered by Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) to cut $700,000 from their budget that was set-aside for the National Security Working Group (NSWG). What many did not realize at the time was that this relatively small and obscure proposed cut would have eliminated one of the last traces of the bipartisan Congressional approach to debating arms control.
The NSWG first began as the Arms Control Observer Group, which helped to build support for arms control in the Senate. In recent years, there have been calls from both Democrats and Republicans to revive the Observer Group, but very little analysis of the role it played. Its history illustrates the stark contrast in the Senate’s attitude and approach to arms control issues during the mid- to late 1980s compared with the divide that exists today between the two parties.
The Arms Control Observer Group
The Arms Control Observer Group was first formed in 1985. At the time, the United States was engaged in talks with the Soviet Union on the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty. To generate support for ongoing negotiations, Majority Leader Senator Bob Dole (R-KS), and Minority Leader Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV), with the endorsement of President Ronald Reagan, created the bipartisan Arms Control Observer Group. The Observer Group consisted of twelve senators, with four senators, two from each party, serving as co-chairs and created an official role for senators to join U.S. delegations as they negotiated arms control treaties. As observers, its members had two duties: to consult with and advise U.S. arms control negotiating teams, and “to monitor and report to the Senate on the progress and development of negotiations.”
During meetings with U.S. State Department negotiators, senators were able to present their views, ask questions, and even engage in candid and confidential exchanges of ideas and information. Senators were also allowed to meet with members of the Soviet delegations on an “informal” basis. The Observer Group believed that the “interplay of ideas” would assist negotiators and, if negotiations failed, the members would help their fellow senators explain the reasons why to the American public.
The Observer Group served a number of purposes. First, it was intended to supplement the activities of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Senator Byrd argued that the process that existed up until that point—where the Foreign Relations Committee became experts on treaties and the full Senate only began to understand the issues after the negotiation—was not functioning properly. Its creators argued, “the full Senate has focused its attention in the past only sporadically on the vital aspects of arms control negotiations, usually developing a knowledge and understanding of the issues being negotiated after the fact…the result of this fitful process has been generally unsatisfactory in recent years.” During the previous decade, the Executive Branch had failed to garner enough Senate support for several arms control initiatives: the Peaceful Nuclear Explosions Treaty of 1976, the Threshold Test Ban Treaty of 1974, and the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT II) of 1979, none of which were ratified by the United States. Although there had been previous attempts to involve senators in arms control negotiations, the Observer group provided “more regular and systematic involvement” from the full Senate long before a vote took place.
The formation of the Observer Group publicly demonstrated the important role of arms control in national security matters. The resolution that created the group states that senators have the “obligation to become as knowledgeable as possible concerning the salient issues, which are being addressed in the context of the negotiating process. Any accord with the Soviet Union to control or reduce our strategic weapons carries considerable weight for our nation.” According to Senator Sam Nunn (D-GA), a founding member of the Observer Group, “the goal [was] to have the Senate fulfill both halves of its constitutional responsibilities, not only the consent half—that’s what we’ve been looking to primarily in the past—but also the advice half.”
Additionally, the Observer Group helped develop institutional knowledge and expertise on arms control within the Senate. The Group’s founding members stated that they believed it was necessary to become “completely conversant” in issues related to treaty negotiations and that such knowledge was “critical” to the Senate’s understanding of the issues involved. To achieve that goal, they held regular behind closed-door briefings on negotiations for senators and their staff and some staffers were able to review related classified materials. Observer Group members were conversant in issues related to previous arms control treaties, missile defense, the connection between strategic offense and defense, and treaty compliance.
Above all, the Observer Group was intended to help build bipartisan support for President Reagan’s arms control initiatives. The group was seen as a mediating body. When it was formed, Senators Dole and Byrd co-authored a resolution stating that the Observer Group was part of “an ongoing process to reestablish a bipartisan spirit in this body’s consideration of vital national security and foreign policy issues.” Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN), who was one of the original members of the Observer Group, agreed by affirming, “The observer group is tremendously important to forming a consensus on which ratification might occur.” The Group’s 1985 report to Congress endorsed “the broad bipartisan support of the Senate for the Administration’s arms control efforts…determination to be as patient as necessary to achieve a sound agreement…the seriousness with which the Senate, including the Observer group intends to fulfill its constitutionally-mandated role in the treaty-making process.” This opinion was also shared by the Reagan administration. In a letter to Senators Dole and Byrd, Secretary of State George Shultz stated that he thought the Observer Group would help facilitate unity on arms control.
It is difficult to demonstrate the extent of its influence as the years the Observer Group was most active were also the years in which arms control was seen by both parties as a vital part of U.S. policy. The success of these initiatives was clearly not solely due to the Observer Group, but it did play a role. Every one of the original Group’s members voted in favor of the INF Treaty in 1988, which passed 93-5. Similarly, all of the senators within the Group voted in favor of ratifying the 1992 START Treaty, which passed 93-6.
The National Security Working Group
Towards the end of the 1990s, the Senate’s attitude towards arms control changed. Negotiations between the United States and Russia on a legally binding nuclear reduction treaty had stalled. The Senate had voted down the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Reflecting this changing point of view, in 1999, Senator Trent Lott (R-MS), wanted to further diminish the Senate’s focus and expertise on arms control issues. He proposed an amendment that expanded the Observer Group’s purview to include observing talks related to missile defense and export controls and renamed it the National Security Working Group. For nearly a decade during the George W. Bush administration, which pursued relatively little in terms of legally binding arms control agreements, the NSWG was relatively dormant.
This changed in 2009 under the Obama administration when the Executive Branch started briefing senators about the ongoing New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) negotiations. From July 6, 2009, when President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed an agreement to reduce American and Russian nuclear arsenals, to April 10, 2010, when they signed the negotiated treaty, the NSWG was revived in order to give senators a role in observing the negotiation process. During this ten-month period, the NSWG began meeting again. The meetings were open to members of the Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees and were well attended, with roughly 50 percent attendance from those who were invited. Senators who participated in the Working Group knew it was a serious matter and paid attention to it. As a result of their attendance, they left meetings better informed on issues related to arms control.
Throughout the course of Senate deliberation of New START, Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) served as the Republican Party’s key interlocutor with Democrats. Unlike his predecessors in the Observer Group, Senator Kyl did not see the Working Group as a vehicle for bipartisan cooperation and consensus building. Senator Kyl used his position as the chief negotiator to disrupt the Obama administration’s legislative agenda on arms control.
Senator Kyl used issues peripheral to the treaty, such as missile defense and modernization of the nuclear stockpile, to “slow roll” the legislative process and prevent the administration from pursuing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which he ardently opposed.1 According to one account, Senator Kyl “was not using the Working Group. It was just a tool to stop the policy. There wasn’t a getting to yes option. It wasn’t there to get to yes. If the members of the group aren’t inclined to get to yes, then the mechanism won’t get them there.” Further, he “came prepared to ask tough questions, not just to listen and probe. He was there to look for chinks in the arms and attack in front of his colleagues. He wanted his colleagues to see it.”
In an effort to prevent Senator Kyl from disrupting meetings, Senate staff made the NSWG open to all members of the Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committees. They also made sure that senior Democratic leadership was present for all of the NSWG meetings. Either Senator John Kerry (D-MA) or Carl Levin (D-MI) served as Chair and were both prepared to answer all questions and concerns.
Despite this impediment, senators still appear to have found the Working Group useful. Senator Levin, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the NSWG provided an opportunity to bring senators in at the beginning of the negotiation process, and “through the group” there were “many opportunities to learn of the progress and details of negotiations and to provide our advice and views to the administration throughout the process.” He praised the NSWG’s work, arguing that it was a “key” part of the treaty ratification process because it allowed senators to begin meeting with the administration “early in the process of negotiation” before New START was finalized. He said that during the New START process, “members of the National Security Working Group asked a great number of questions, received answers at a number of meetings, stayed abreast of the negotiation details, and provided advice to the administration.” Finally, he added that, through the NSWG, the administration had the opportunity to respond to senators’ questions and concerns, which helped to avoid problems during the Senate’s consideration of the treaty.
The Senate was less supportive of arms control this time around. Even with senators actively involved in the NSWG, only 13 Republicans ended up supporting the treaty. Of those 13, only four Republicans were members of the Working Group (Senators Lugar, Corker, Voinovich, and Cochran). Among those four, only Senator Lugar was a particularly strong advocate for the treaty.
At best, the Working Group had a mixed track record and certainly did not have the same kind of success as the Observer Group. Only two senators traveled to observe New START negotiations. There was no spirit of cooperation or strong bipartisan support for the treaty. The Working Group essentially became a courtroom where New START could be prosecuted.
The Future of the NSWG
Since the vote on New START, the NSWG has not been any more successful in helping to foster bipartisanship. At the beginning of the 113th session of Congress, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) were appointed co-chairs. Senator Rubio, like Senator Kyl, has attempted to impede the Obama Administration’s work on arms control.
While the cooperative atmosphere that surrounded the Arms Control Observer Group seems like an anachronism in today’s political climate, this is not meant to argue that senators within the Working Group need to agree on everything. There were major disagreements over nuclear policy during the Reagan administration and at times, heated discussions within the Observer Group. The difference was that the Observer Group was effective because the senators who were in it believed that arms control could advance U.S. national interests and wanted the group to succeed.
Today, the NSWG suffers from three broader trends within the United States that inhibit this attitude. The first is that the partisanship that exists in the Working Group is a reflection of the divisions in Congress. Given this dynamic, if there is any chance for the NSWG to serve as a valuable forum, individuals looking for the spotlight cannot be given the opportunity to hijack it. Secondly, since the end of the Cold War, detailed, negotiated arms control agreements are decreasingly seen as important to advancing U.S. national interests. There is diminishing prestige or interest in being a member of the NSWG or in supporting arms control. Thirdly, the Republican Party is far more skeptical about any legally binding international commitments than it once was.
These trends are unfortunate. The fact is that arms control still has a role to play in advancing U.S. interests and promoting international peace and stability. There are numerous issues that the United States and Russia will still need to address together. They continue to cooperate on issues related to Iran and reducing the risk of nuclear terrorism. They will likely still continue to communicate about issues related to U.S. missile defense deployment. Some think that current problems between the United States and Russia are evidence that this is not the case, but it was this kind of tension that led both countries to arms control in the first place. For this reason, diplomacy will remain an important policy tool for preventing catastrophic war between the two countries.
With diminishing nuclear policy expertise in a divided Senate, there is a need for a group of engaged, knowledgeable senators invested in arms control. For this reason, the NSWG will continue to have the opportunity to play a constructive role in informing the Senate on these issues and allowing senators into the diplomatic process.
The first members of the Group were Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), Sam Nunn (D-Georgia), Richard Lugar (R-Indiana), Claiborne Pell (D-Rhode Island), Al Gore (D-Tennessee), Ted Kennedy (D-Massachusetts), Pat Moynihan (D-New York), Don Nickles (R-Oklahoma), John Warner (R-Virginia), and Malcolm Wallop (R-Wyoming).
Foreword, Report of the Senate Arms Control Observer Group Delegation to the Opening of the Arms Control, Negotiations with the Soviet Union in Geneva, Switzerland, March 9-12, (III) 1985.
Origin and Summary of Activities, Report of the Senate Arms Control Observer Group Delegation to the Opening of the ArmsControl, Negotiations with the Soviet Union in Geneva, Switzerland, March 9-12, 1985.
Transcript of Press Conference of Observer Group in Geneva, March 12, 1985, Report of the Senate Arms Control Observer Group Delegation to the Opening of the Arms Control, Negotiations with the Soviet Union in Geneva, Switzerland, March 9-12, 1985.
Origin and Summary of Activities, Report of the Senate Arms Control Observer Group Delegation to the Opening of the Arms Control, Negotiations with the Soviet Union in Geneva, Switzerland, March 9-12, 1985.
Janne E. Nolan, “Preparing for the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review,” Arms Control Today, November 2000, http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2000_11/nolan
Congressional Staffer (April 4, 2013), personal interview.
Kyl, Jon, Memo to National Security Working Group Republican Members: Report on the NSWG CODEL to Observe the Geneva Negotiations, November 23, 2009, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/images/091123_20091121_-_Kyl_Memo_to_NSWG_-_NSWG_START_mission.pdf.
Senator Carl Levin (MI), “Authorizing Expenditures by Committees,” Congressional Record (March 5, 2013), p. S1103.
Kristine Bergstrom, “Rubio vs Gottemoeller: The New Partisan Politics of Senate Nuclear Confirmations,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, March 7, 2014, http://carnegieendowment.org/2014/03/07/rose-gottemoeller-marco-rubio-and-new-partisan-politics-of-senate-nuclear-confirmations/h2mq.
Nickolas Roth is a research associate at the Project on Managing the Atom in the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School. Nickolas Roth previously worked as a policy analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists, where he wrote extensively about the industrial infrastructure responsible for maintaining the nuclear weapons stockpile. Mr. Roth has a B.A. in History from American University and a Masters of Public Policy from the University of Maryland, where he is currently a research fellow. Mr. Roth’s written work has appeared or been cited in dozens of media outlets around the world, including the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Asahi Shimbun, Boston Globe, and Newsweek.
American Scientists and Nuclear Weapons Policy
“Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it,” warned British statesman and philosopher Edmund Burke more than 200 years ago. Having recently delved into reading about the history of the first group of American atomic scientists and their efforts to deal with the nuclear arms race, I have realized that Burke was right. More so, I would underscore that the ideas of these intellectual path-breakers are still very much alive today, and that even when we are fully cognizant of this history we are bound to repeat it. By studying these scientists’ ideas, Robert Gilpin in his 1962 book, American Scientists and Nuclear Weapons Policy, identifies three schools of thought: (1) control, (2) finite containment, and (3) infinite containment.
The control school had its origins in the Franck Report, which had James Franck, an atomic scientist at the Metallurgical Laboratory at the University of Chicago serve as the lead drafter of the report which argued that “any international agreement on prevention of nuclear armaments must be backed by actual and efficient controls.” Seventy Manhattan Project scientists signed this report in June 1945, which was then sent to Secretary of War Henry Stimson. They suggested that instead of detonating atomic bombs on Japan, the United States might demonstrate the new weapon on “a barren island” and thus say to the world, “You see what sort of a weapon we had but did not use. We are ready to renounce its use in the future if other nations join us in this renunciation and agree to the establishment of an efficient control.” As we all know, the United States government did not take this advice during the Second World War.
But in 1946, the United States put forward in the Acheson-Lilienthal Report (in which J. Robert Oppenheimer, scientific director of the Manhattan Project, served as the lead drafter) ideas for international control of atomic energy. In the form of the Baruch Plan, this proposal before the fledging United Nations faced opposition from the Soviet Union, which wanted to arm itself with nuclear weapons before accepting a U.S. plan that could leave the United States wielding a monopoly on nuclear arms. However, the control school has been kept alive in part, through the founding in 1957 of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has the dual mission to promote peaceful nuclear power and safeguard these programs. Periodically, concepts are still put forward to create multilateral means to exert some control over uranium enrichment and reprocessing of plutonium, the methods to make fissile material for nuclear reactors or bombs. Many of the founders and leading scientists of FAS such as Philip Morrison and Linus Pauling belonged to the control school.
Starting in the late 1940s, disillusionment about the feasibility of international control was setting in among several atomic scientists active in FAS and advisory roles for the government. They began to see the necessity for making nuclear weapons to contain the Soviet Union. Nonetheless, there were those who believed that international controls should continue to be pursued in parallel with production of atomic bombs. Thus, a sharp division did not exist between the control and finite containment schools of thought. Oppenheimer exemplified this view in a speech on September 17, 1947, to the National War College where he extolled the “soundness” of the control proposals but lamented that “the very bases for international control between the United States and the Soviet Union were being eradicated by a revelation of their deep conflicts of interest, the deep and apparently mutual repugnance of their ways of life, and the apparent conviction on the part of the Soviet Union of the inevitably of conflict—and not in ideas alone, but in force.”
Reading this, I think of the dilemma the United States faces with Iran over efforts to control the Iranian nuclear program while confronting decades of mistrust. One big difference between Iran and the Soviet Union is that Iran, as a non-nuclear weapon state party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, is legally obligated to not make or acquire nuclear explosives whereas the Soviet Union never had such legal restrictions. Thus, Iran has already agreed to accept controls through safeguards on its nuclear program. The question is what additional controls Iran will agree to accept in order to provide needed assurances that it does not have a nuclear weapons program and will not develop such in the future. In parallel, the United States is strengthening containment mostly via a military presence in the Persian Gulf region and providing weapons and defense systems to U.S. allies in the Middle East. Scientists play vital roles both in improving methods of control via monitoring, safeguarding, and verifying Iran’s nuclear activities and in designing new military weapon systems for containment through the threat of force.
How much military force is enough to contain or deter? The scientists who believed in finite containment were generally reluctant, and even some were opposed, to advocating for more and more powerful weapons. As Gilpin examines in his book, the first major schism among the scientists was during the internal government debate in 1949 and 1950 about whether to develop the hydrogen bomb. In particular, the finite containment scientists on the General Advisory Committee to the Atomic Energy Commission assessed that “an American decision not to construct the hydrogen bomb would again symbolize the sincerity of America’s desire to end the atomic arms race.”
In contrast, the infinite containment school that included Edward Teller (who was instrumental in designing the hydrogen bomb), and Ernest Lawrence (who was a scientific leader during the Manhattan Project and was based at the University of California, Berkeley), “argued that control over nuclear weapons would only be possible in a completely open world such as that envisioned in the Baruch Plan. Under the conditions of modern science, the arms race would therefore be unavoidable until the political differences underlying that arms race were settled” in the words of Gilpin. Many of the infinite containment scientists were the strongest advocates for declassifying nuclear secrets as long as there were firm assurances that nations had joined together to prevent the use of nuclear energy for military purposes or that “peace-loving nations had a sufficient arsenal of atomic weapons [to] destroy the will of aggressive nations to wage war.” In effect, they were arguing for world government or for a coalition of allied nations to enforce world peace.
Readers will be reminded of many instances in which history has repeated itself as mirrored by the control, finite containment, and infinite containment ways of thought arising from the atomic scientists’ movement of the 1940s and 1950s. Despite the disagreements among these “schools,” a common belief is that the scientists “knew that technical breakthroughs rarely come unless one is looking for them and that if the best minds of the country were brought in to concentrate on the problem, someone would find a solution … if there were one to be found,” according to Gilpin. Gilpin also astutely recommended that “wisdom flourishes best and error is avoided most effectively in an atmosphere of intellectual give and take where scientists of opposed political persuasions are pitted against one another.” Finally, he uncovered a most effective technique for “bring[ing] about the integration of the technical and policy aspects of policy” through “the contracted study project … wherein experts from both inside and outside of the government meet together over a period of months to fashion policy suggestions in a broad area of national concern.”
This, in effect, is the new operational model for much of FAS’s work. We are forming study groups and task forces that include diverse groups of technical and policy experts from both inside and outside the government. Stay tuned to reports from FAS as these groups tackle urgent and important science-based national security problems.
Charles D. Ferguson, Ph.D.
President, Federation of American Scientists