This essay and the longer paper it is based on, ““The Law of Energy Abundance,” were written for the Law of Abundance project at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Economy and Society.

For the first time in decades, electricity demand in the United States is increasing, driven by A.I., new data centers, electric vehicle growth, new manufacturing hubs, and transportation electrification. At the same time, coal-fired power plants have been closing in response to competition from lower-cost natural gas and renewable energy. Clean energy is being rapidly deployed to replace those plants, but this is not happening fast enough to address concerns about demand growth and grid reliability. Specifically, recent electricity market data show that there is a growing imbalance between supply and demand in many regions of the country that threatens to increase electricity prices, delay coal plant retirements, and undermine the clean energy transition in the face of climate-driven increases in extreme weather.

The lagging supply of carbon-free energy is not caused primarily by technological or economic constraints, but rather by a set of artificial bottlenecks that are embedded in the current legal and regulatory frameworks governing U.S. energy development, similar to supply-side problems in other areas of the economy. The “abundance” movement has emerged to address these problems in areas as diverse as housing, healthcare, higher education, and air travel. Its proponents argue that society’s challenges require expanding the nation’s resources, opportunities, and productivity by overcoming burdensome regulatory and legislative processes. 

We believe that the abundance movement may be uniquely well-suited to address the nation’s energy supply challenges. Having already secured bipartisan support for a series of pro-housing zoning reforms throughout the country, the abundance movement presents a vision of growth, jobs, and lower prices that can appeal to a broad range of stakeholders and policymakers at a time of high political polarization in the United States. 

In a forthcoming essay in the North Carolina Law Review, we define energy abundance and develop the parameters for a “Law of Energy Abundance” to achieve it. To our knowledge, this is the first effort to do so. While abundance advocates have written at some length about the need for energy abundance, the movement often glosses over the real differences between abundance proponents who would include natural gas and other fossil fuels in their supply-side efforts and those who would not. This distinction is important. We believe energy abundance in the United States and the world cannot succeed without a shift to zero-carbon energy because of the environmental harms and socioeconomic costs associated with continuing to burn fossil fuels. By focusing on clean energy abundance, our approach is specifically designed to bridge existing divides between supply-side advocates and environmental protection advocates. 

One illustration of supply constraints in the energy sector involves the well-documented challenges in building the long-distance, electric transmission lines needed to improve grid reliability and transport low-cost wind and solar energy from where it can be generated to population centers. In 2011, the Midcontinent Independent System Operator, a regional grid operator covering large parts of the Midwest and South, approved a portfolio of 17 high-voltage transmission projects, known as the Multi-Value Projects (MVPs), designed to increase grid reliability, lower electricity costs, and help states achieve their renewable energy goals. One of these MVP projects was the 102-mile, 345-kV Cardinal-Hickory Creek transmission line, planned to connect western Wisconsin with northeastern Iowa, bringing new wind and solar resources in the upper Midwest to population centers across the region and increasing overall grid reliability.

The line passed through a wildlife refuge along the Iowa-Wisconsin border, which prompted a lawsuit from three environmental groups. They argued that the refuge should not be turned into a “sacrifice zone” for transmission development, even though two smaller transmission lines already crossed through the refuge and the Cardinal-Hickory Creek project would replace one and reroute the other. Notably, other environmental advocacy groups and clean energy nonprofits joined the lawsuit on the side of the developers, arguing that the line was needed to support renewable energy development in the region and to help retire existing fossil fuel plants. Ultimately, the lawsuit prevented the line’s developers from completing construction until September 2024, making it the last MVP project to become operational, many years after the other 16 projects, and contributing to cost overruns of over $150 million.

This example illustrates the permitting and litigation barriers to growing the supply of clean energy needed to maintain grid reliability, lower electricity costs, and decarbonize the economy. It also illustrates the growing chasm between clean energy advocates and environmental protection advocates, and even among environmental protection advocates, based on conflicts over whether to prioritize electricity sector carbon reduction or avoid localized environmental impacts. These stubborn obstacles to constructing new clean energy infrastructure raise the question of whether an alliance can be formed to bridge the divide between clean energy advocates and environmental protection advocates who have a common goal of increasing the supply of carbon-free electricity but differ on priorities and strategies.

This is where the abundance movement shows promise. The abundance movement, together with the “Yes in My Backyard” or YIMBY movement, has had success in the housing realm through local and state-level legislative changes to ease permitting and zoning restrictions for multi-family housing units and accessory dwelling units (ADUs) to address increasing scarcity and higher prices in residential real estate. A central question for us is the extent to which energy abundance can follow the lead of housing abundance and create bipartisan coalitions of advocates and politicians to overcome permitting delays and other roadblocks to building clean energy infrastructure.

This effort to define and build a movement around energy abundance comes at a critical juncture. Upon his inauguration in January 2025, President Trump immediately began dismantling President Biden’s clean energy policies by directing federal agencies to create expedited approval processes for fossil fuel projects while simultaneously attempting to bring wind and solar energy development to a halt both on and off federal lands and waters. While these federal policy developments present significant barriers to a clean energy transition, these threats can also present opportunities for advocates. They provide a moment for clean energy advocates, state and local governments with decarbonization goals, and others to consider new alliances, regroup, evaluate new directions, and build new movements to achieve shared goals. Developing an approach to energy abundance that can unite and realign interest groups can lead to progress in the short term at the state and local levels and ensure advocates are ready for action at the federal level when the time is right.

Alexandra Klass is James G. Degnan Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School. Matthew Appel is a 2025 J.D. Candidate at the University of Michigan Law School.