> " This style of thinking is present especially in environmental laws like the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) at the federal level, or the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) at the state level. These laws both require the government to conduct an exhaustive review of government projects—sometimes even permitting decisions on private projects—that might have negative environmental impacts."

There's a reason those laws were passed, and it's because of all the massive groundwater and air and soil contamination problems created by unregulated free-for-all industrial development that have had to be cleaned up at great public expense. Those waste problems are solvable but solutions are often expensive, adding a large percentage onto the end-to-end cost of a manufacturing line for semiconductors, for example:

https://www.epa.gov/superfund-redevelopment/superfund-sites-...

As far as large-scale public infrastructure projects, a lot of that is repair and rebuilding of existing installations (bridges etc.), so there's not as much environmental review there - just a need to devote resources to the task. I suppose a more autocratic country like China (which has rapidly built out high-speed rail) wouldn't bother about EPA reviews, but the air in China can be pretty bad.

As far as doing things quickly? The global supply chain problem is pretty evident right now, maybe offshoring and 'just in time' manufacturing wasn't such a great idea due to its lack of robustness under stress? Critical supply chains should be located domestically. Yes, that would either raise prices or cut profits due to increased domestic labor costs and pollution regulations.