Fixing the Bottleneck: How Real Permitting and Siting Reform Can Speed the Clean-Energy Transition

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s 2021 ruling in Town of Sudbury v. Energy Facilities Siting Board captured the challenge clearly: the Siting Board must balance providing a reliable energy supply for the Commonwealth with minimizing environmental impact and maintaining the lowest possible cost—reconciling these goals from case to case. [1].

I saw that balance firsthand. I worked on the Sudbury–Hudson Reliability Project when it was first proposed in 2016, a project designed to strengthen electric service for my hometown of Stow and for roughly 72,000 customers in the region. The line finally went into service many years later, after multiple appeals and redesigns, at nearly triple its original cost.

The completed Sudbury-Hudson Reliability Project (Eversource), with the transmission line buried under a new rail trail.

Presenting the Project to the Public

On a March evening in 2016, my colleagues and I attended an open house at Sudbury Town Hall to meet with residents about the proposed Sudbury-Hudson Reliability Project. The meeting that night captured the challenge we face in building modern energy infrastructure. Many residents were deeply worried about how the project might affect their town — its character, the environment, even their families’ safety. Others questioned whether it was really needed. Some discussions grew tense, and emotions ran high. What began as an informational open house became a lesson in how complex and personal energy siting can be.

Nearly nine years later, that line is now in service. The project endured multiple permitting reviews, lawsuits, design changes, and appeals before reaching completion in 2024. ISO-NE records show the cost grew from roughly $45 million to $128 million — a reflection of how redesigns (for example, converting from overhead to underground transmission) and protracted siting and permitting processes and appeals can multiply costs and timelines across the industry [2][3][4].

Projects like Sudbury-Hudson aren’t exceptions; they’re emblematic of a broader structural problem. Across New England and the U.S., projects that are technically sound and environmentally responsible still spend years navigating overlapping reviews and uncertain outcomes. The question isn’t whether to maintain environmental rigor — it’s how to do so efficiently and predictably enough so that good projects can actually get built. The experience was far from unique, and it underscores why permitting reform has become an urgent challenge in the clean-energy transition.

The Case for Real Reform

Across the country, many clean-energy and reliability projects face the same hurdles. Whether it’s new transmission lines, battery storage, or solar arrays, developers and utilities face overlapping reviews, inconsistent standards, and protracted appeals.

The intent behind these processes is sound — to protect the environment and give communities a voice — but the implementation is often inadequate. Instead of thoughtful oversight, we have a system so slow and fragmented that even responsible projects struggle to get approved. Laws and regulations crafted in the last century are ill-suited for today’s challenges.

Reform isn’t about weakening environmental standards. It’s about modernizing them. Making them efficient, predictable, and credible so that good projects can move forward quickly while flawed ones are caught early.

Massachusetts: A State at a Crossroads

Massachusetts’ 2024 Climate Act recognizes this need. The new law aims to consolidate and modernize permitting for clean-energy infrastructure through expanded roles for the Department of Energy Resources and the Department of Public Utilities, along with new regulations, guidelines, and tools. It’s an ambitious and much-needed framework.

But implementation will determine how well it succeeds. If the new system reduces redundant reviews, limits protracted appeals, and increases public involvement and trust, it could become a national model. If it is overly prescriptive or creates new roadblocks, it risks deepening the bottleneck it set out to fix.

Reform done right could shorten timelines by years. Reform done wrong could extend them or deter clean-energy developers from investing in the state.

New York and Beyond: Momentum Across the Country

Massachusetts isn’t alone. New York is pursuing reforms to replace or consolidate legacy processes under Article VII (transmission) and Section 94-c (renewables). Illinois passed a major clean energy reform bill on October 30, 2025, including statewide standards for zoning and permitting of wind and solar projects, among other important provisions. The goals are similar to Massachusetts: an efficient, certain permitting path for clean-energy infrastructure.

California, long known for its rigorous California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) process, passed a series of streamlining bills to accelerate construction of new housing and infrastructure projects, signed into law this year. And at the federal level, the Council on Environmental Quality and other federal agencies issued the most significant National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) changes in decades. Federal legislation to reform energy permitting has also become a congressional priority.

The trend is clear: a recognition at the state and federal level that timely deployment of new energy projects cannot succeed at the current pace of permitting.

The Human Side of the Bottleneck

Behind every delayed project are real consequences, for utility ratepayers, communities, and the electric grid. A decade-long permitting battle doesn’t just increase costs; it erodes public trust. It feeds the perception that clean energy is inherently disruptive, or that progress always comes at a local cost.

What’s missing in many reform efforts isn’t just efficiency, but productive public involvement. If we can shorten timelines and make the process more accessible to reasonable community participation, we can build both infrastructure and trust at the same time.

Smarter, Not Looser

Across these state and federal efforts, a common principle should guide reform: make it smarter, not looser.

• Focus review where it matters most — environmental risk, reliability, cost, and community impacts.

• Eliminate duplication across state agencies, and between statewide and local procedures.

• Set uniform statewide standards and clear timelines that give certainty to both developers and the public, including reasonable limits on extended appeals.

• Use tools, data, and early community engagement to improve designs, decisions, and public support.

The goal is not to get around environmental review — it’s to make it work for today’s challenges.

Getting It Right

Successful, lasting permitting and siting reform won’t come from discarding existing laws or adding new layers of bureaucracy. It will come from collaboration — among agencies, developers, and communities — and from a willingness to fix what’s broken without losing what works.

If we get it right, we can deliver the clean, reliable infrastructure our economy needs in years instead of decades. And maybe the next time a transmission project like Sudbury–Hudson comes up, we’ll spend less time and resources arguing appeals — and more time building the grid we all depend on.

That’s what I aim to foster through my work at CBR Energy Solutions — and it's how we can make the clean-energy transition more practical, inclusive, and real. If you’d like to discuss siting, permitting, or community engagement for clean-energy projects, reach out at info@cbrenergysolutions.com.

Sources

[1] Town of Sudbury v. Energy Facilities Siting Board, 488 Mass. --- (2021), SJC-12997 (June 25, 2021), at pp. 2–3, 16–17. (“The board’s obligation is to balance the reliability, cost, and environmental impact of each proposal… No one factor is determinative, and the board has wide discretion to balance the factors from case to case to achieve its statutory mandate.”)

[2] ISO New England (ISO-NE), Greater Boston Project Cost Update (Sept 24 2020), Reliability Committee Presentation, p. 10. Lists RSP #1335 (Sudbury–Hudson 115 kV Line) with an original TCA-approved cost of $45.3 million and a revised estimate of $91.0 million following conversion from overhead to underground design. https://www.iso-ne.com/static-assets/documents/2020/09/a6_greater_boston_project_cost_update.pdf

[3] ISO New England (ISO-NE), Final Project List Presentation (June 15 2023), Planning Advisory Committee Update, p. 7. Reports a +$23.1 million increase for RSP #1335 due to “lengthy siting/permitting and appeal process; increased soil management / disposal costs; increased groundwater treatment costs; and material costs.” https://www.iso-ne.com/static-assets/documents/2023/06/final_project_list_presentation_june_2023.pdf

[4] ISO New England (ISO-NE), RSP Project List Update (Mar 19 2025), Planning Advisory Committee, Appendix A p. 24. Confirms RSP #1335 “New Sudbury to Hudson 115 kV Underground Line” placed in service (Dec 2024) with final reported cost of $128.5 million. https://www.iso-ne.com/static-assets/documents/100022/final_project_list_presentation-mar_2025_clean.pdf

All ISO-NE documents are publicly available via the Reliability Committee and Planning Advisory Committee archives at iso-ne.com.