Utilities Need Regulatory Certainty

The Nicholas Institute's Tim Profeta contributed an essay to "How to Advance Environmental Protection During a Turbulent Era," a special section in the March/April issue of Environmental Forum. The Trump administration is expected to take up a deregulatory agenda—which environmentalists anticipate with trepidation but which businesses generally welcome as an appropriate relaxation of regulations they say inhibit a creative free market and stymie investments in needed projects. The debate asked: what will environmental activists want to do to ensure continued forward movement—and ensure a half century of progress isn’t erased—while deregulatory parties are in control of the policymaking machinery? Why do advocates on both sides think they will succeed? What’s at stake if they fail?