American businesses aren’t allowed to build. It’s time Congress helped them

America’s share of global manufacturing output has fallen from 25% in 1997 to 15% today.

Absent intervention, it could reach 11% by 2030.

Those numbers get thrown around a lot.

What is said less is what they mean for Americans: The United States is losing its ability to produce the things it needs to defend itself, to power its economy and to care for its people.

This failure is not because we lack talent, capital or technology.

It is because we have made it nearly impossible to build anything here.

This inability to build harms every American industry and every American job.

Whether it is semiconductor fabricators, munitions or battery factories, rare earth production facilities, natural gas pipelines, oil refineries or medical manufacturing centers, all hit the same regulatory barrier: federal permitting law.

INNOVATION IS KEY TO AMERICA STAYING A SUPERPOWER.

BUT IT IS MISSING AN ESSENTIAL PIECE Among the various federal permitting barriers, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) stands as the most egregious.

Unlike substantive environmental protections found in statutes like the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act, NEPA’s central function is procedural, requiring analysis and disclosure of environmental impacts before major federal actions.

Over time, regulatory layering and aggressive legal interpretation transformed this reasonable "look before you leap" statute into a roadblock for projects with any sort of federal connection.

SENATE REPUBLICAN PUSHES OVERHAUL TO CUT RED TAPE AND SPEED UP AMERICAN ENERGY PROJECTS This regulatory accretion has turned NEPA into a tool to stop nearly any meaningful project — across every state and political spectrum.

It is not every day renewable energy advocates and oil and gas executives work together to reform a statute.