Feb 12: Transit for housing abundance, AI for NEPA reviews, and ADU preeemption language

Feb 12, 2026

Highlights:

🏠 Housing: The language of state ADU preemption laws matters

🚊 Transit: Designing transportation systems for housing abundance

📑 Permitting: How to use AI in NEPA Reviews

🧪 Science & Innovation: Conflict-of-interest policies slow medical innovation

🏭 Industrial Policy: US vs. Chinese strategies for securing critical minerals

State-level ADU preemptions succeed or fail depending on statutory language
The Granny Flat Rebellion: Preempting Local ADU Restrictions—Andrew Welch (SMU Law Review)
State ADU preemption laws prove effective when they eliminate poison pills like owner-occupancy requirements and parking mandates. Evidence from California, Montana, and Oregon shows that removing these restrictions correlates with ninefold increases in permitting; Texas and Austin demonstrate continued local resistance despite state protection, revealing the necessity of stringent preemption language to overcome NIMBY opposition.
Addressing expensive or unavailable home insurance from climate catastrophes
The Uninsurable Future: The Climate Threat to Property Insurance—Dave Jones (Yale Law Journal)
Climate change increases catastrophe frequency and severity, causing insurers to raise rates and withdraw coverage, destabilizing mortgage markets. State deregulation (Florida) and rate increases (California) offer short-term fixes but ignore underlying drivers. Jones proposes state insurance reforms, land-use restrictions on high-risk development, federal reinsurance programs, and requiring insurers to divest from fossil fuels.

The effect of corporate power purchase agreements on large-scale renewables projects
Corporate Power Purchase Agreements and Their Influence on the Expansion of Large-Scale Renewable Energy Projects in the U.S.—Ebere J. Onyeka (World Journal of Advanced Research and Reviews)
Long-term corporate power purchase agreements reduce renewable project financing risk by providing stable revenue streams, though regional adoption varies by electricity market structure and regulatory access. Key barriers include market volatility, contract complexity, and stringent credit requirements limiting smaller companies. Emerging solutions—hybrid CPPAs, energy storage integration, and aggregation models—could expand access while policy attention to permitting and grid modernization remains critical.

How to reimagine transit to enable housing abundance
Transportation for the Abundant Society—Gregory H. Shill and Jonathan Levine
Transportation policy’s focus on vehicle speed rather than access creates a binding constraint on housing abundance. Reorienting toward connecting people to destinations—and reforming environmental review to use realistic counterfactuals—would unlock density in high-demand areas while advancing climate and safety goals. Legal barriers, institutional fragmentation, and path dependence reinforce this mobility-centered paradigm across federal, state, and local systems.

How to use AI in NEPA Reviews
Using AI in NEPA Review: Legal Challenges and Judicial Scrutiny—Tuoya Saren (Environmental Law Reporter)
Agencies testing AI for environmental impact statements face uncertainty about regulatory authority and judicial acceptance. Explainable, auditable AI systems paired with human oversight at critical junctures could enable compliance with NEPA’s procedural requirements while managing risks of bias and inadequate public participation.

A history of commercializing science from the Renaissance to today
The emergence and evolution of science–industry intermediaries: An evolutionary framework—Sarah Tung & Julien Pénin (Journal of Evolutionary Economics
Science-industry intermediaries—organizations bridging research and commercial application—emerged in the Renaissance, not post-WWII as typically assumed. They evolved across three phases: pre-industrial (reducing transaction costs), first industrial age (knowledge transfer), and second industrial age (institutional development). An evolutionary framework reveals changing intermediary functions aligned with shifting economic structures.
Stricter conflict-of-interest policies threaten to slow medical innovation
Balancing innovation and integrity: the biomedical research ecosystem at a crossroads—Robert G. Gourdie (Nature Biotechnology)
Stricter conflict-of-interest rules for NIH-funded researchers risk undermining US biomedical innovation leadership. The Bayh-Dole Act’s technology transfer framework has generated $1.7–$1.9 trillion in economic output by encouraging academic commercialization. Evidence suggests researcher financial conflicts don’t drive misconduct; instead, external investor and regulatory scrutiny may strengthen reproducibility.

US vs. Chinese strategies for securing critical minerals
Internationalizing Industrial Policy: How China and the United States Use State Capacity to Secure Critical Minerals for Electric Vehicles—Daniel Driscoll, Max Kiefel, and Mathias Larsen
China and the United States internationalize industrial policy differently to secure EV critical minerals. China deploys state-owned enterprises and financial institutions to control mining globally; the United States leverages currency dominance and military power. Both require combining market dominance with domestically specific capacities to project power abroad.

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