The Difficulty of Reforming CEQA, with Michael Bennon

In the first of a two-part series on policy and infrastructure, Michael Bennon joins Francis Fukuyama to discuss the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), its impacts, and how to overcome some of the challenges it creates. In a forthcoming report for California 100 — an ambitious statewide initiative to envision and shape the long-term success of the state — Fukuyama and Bennon use CEQA as a case study of California’s governance in an evolving media ecosystem.

Michael Bennon is a Research Scholar at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) for the Global Infrastructure Policy Research Initiative. Michael's research interests include infrastructure policy, project finance, public-private partnerships, and institutional design in the infrastructure sector. Michael also teaches Global Project Finance to graduate students at Stanford. Prior to Stanford, Michael served as a Captain in the US Army and US Army Corps of Engineers for five years, leading Engineer units, managing projects, and planning for infrastructure development in the United States, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Thailand.

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California 100 is a transformative statewide initiative focused on inspiring a vision and strategy for California’s next century that is innovative, sustainable, and equitable. The initiative is incubated at the University of California and Stanford, and is guided by an expert and intergenerational Commission.

Democracy IRL is produced by the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), part of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University.

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