Essential National Projects & Refinery Modernization
PROPOSED / DRAFT: ESSENTIAL NATIONAL PROJECTS & REFINERY MODERNIZATION
POSITION
America must be able to build the energy, transportation, industrial, defense, water, communications, and other major systems required for national growth, public need, economic security, and independence. State and local participation matters, but no single jurisdiction should be able to block a genuinely essential national project indefinitely.
SIXTY-REFINERY MODERNIZATION PLAN
The United States should establish a 20-year national plan to site, approve, construct, and bring into operation 60 new oil refineries. Most should be located along appropriate coastal and port regions, with additional facilities distributed throughout the country for geographic resilience, defense, supply security, and regional demand.
Each planned refinery should occupy approximately 1,100 acres and be designed for capacity of at least 500,000 barrels per day, with site-specific safety, environmental, transportation, storage, utility, security, and community requirements built into the design.
Older refineries should be retired, dismantled, remediated, and recycled through a coordinated 30-year plan. Existing capacity should not be retired before safe and reliable replacement capacity is operating unless continued operation presents an independently verified danger that requires earlier closure.
FEDERAL AUTHORITY FOR ESSENTIAL NATIONAL PROJECTS
Congress should authorize a defined federal process for projects that are materially necessary for national defense, interstate commerce, energy security, public health or safety, critical infrastructure, housing, industrial capacity, or another documented national need.
Federal approval may supersede a conflicting state or local denial, condition, moratorium, or delay only after a public written finding establishes:
The specific national need and constitutional authority.
Why the project is essential and why a materially adequate alternative is not reasonably available.
The project's site, capacity, cost, schedule, owner, contractors, financing, and expected public benefit.
The state and local process already attempted and the precise conflict or unreasonable delay requiring federal action.
The safety, environmental, water, transportation, labor, security, property-rights, tribal, community, and emergency-response requirements that will apply.
The measures required to prevent, reduce, repair, or compensate for foreseeable harm.
FAIR PROCESS BEFORE PREEMPTION
The responsible federal body must provide public notice, the supporting record, a meaningful hearing, and 30 calendar days for an initial decision. An independent appeal must be decided within the next 30 calendar days. A complaint or independent review must conclude within the following 30 calendar days. On day 91, affected parties may seek judicial review.
A state, tribe, locality, landowner, applicant, worker, or affected resident may present evidence. The federal decision must answer material objections and explain why any rejected alternative or condition would not meet the national need.
PROPERTY RIGHTS & COMPENSATION
Federal preemption does not erase private property rights. Any taking must use lawful authority, provide due process and just compensation, and use no more property than reasonably necessary. Owners and occupants must receive relocation, restoration, access, and damage protections required by law.
SAFETY, ENVIRONMENT & SECURITY
Federal approval may coordinate and decide overlapping reviews, but it may not waive material engineering, fire, process-safety, worker-safety, pollution-control, water-protection, cybersecurity, physical-security, spill-response, emergency-planning, or evidence-preservation requirements.
Refineries and other high-consequence projects must use layered physical and cyber defenses, independent inspections, tested shutdown and emergency systems, verified operator training, mutual-aid plans, and public reporting that protects truly sensitive security details.
NO FAVORITISM OR BLANK CHECK
Essential-project authority may not be used to reward a donor, punish a state, conceal a private development, bypass competitive procurement, transfer uncompensated private losses to the public, or force approval without a documented national need.
Public money, loan guarantees, or other federal support must be released by independently verified milestones. Fraud, false certification, undisclosed conflicts, deliberate concealment, or diversion triggers suspension, recovery, debarment, restitution, and criminal referral when the elements of an offense are proven.
MEASUREMENT & SUNSET REVIEW
Public reporting should track approvals, denials, decision time, litigation, construction progress, capacity delivered, regional supply resilience, safety events, environmental performance, costs, private and public financing, property compensation, retired facilities, cleanup, recycling, and whether the stated national need was actually met.
Congress should review the federal preemption authority at least every five years. Authority that is abused, ineffective, or no longer necessary must be narrowed or allowed to expire.
Core MPA standard: America must be able to build what it truly needs. The decision must be firm, public, evidence-based, fair to affected people, and strong enough to overcome obstruction without becoming a license for abuse.
Related policies: Energy; Infrastructure Modernization & Disaster Response; Environment, Conservation & Natural Resources; Property Rights, Land Use & Off-Grid Living; Federal Spending & National Debt.
Status: Proposed / Draft, not yet formally adopted.
Originally published: October 3, 2026.
Last updated: October 3, 2026.
Version: Draft 0.1.