Yes. As a survivor of one of these battles, when the neighbors don't want you to do something, they will throw every wrench they can find into the works. "Good faith" is nonexistent. I'm very, very sympathetic to environmental concerns, but the way I've seen this sort of thing used in real life is absolute nonsense.

It is unknowable. People who truly want the best for the environment obviously exist, but the outcomes of our environmental policies have secondary and tertiary effects that would also benefit people who wanted to make population growth and population change difficult for other reasons.

Apologies for the gross long URL, and as always correlation is not causation, but correlations are still worth thinking about: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=redlining%2Cen...

In a lot of ways, yes. Kicking projects back for more environmental review has recently become a method to delay/soft cancel projects that are now out of vogue. FERC recently kicked a proposed LNG terminal in Oregon back for more environmental review[1], the Biden admin revoking the permit for Keystone XL, and so on. (I would note I am in support of both of those moves)

Combined with a rising 'consulting class' if you will where it is only to their benefit to drag out these studies and billable hours.

[1]https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-lng-jordancove/u-s-fe...

It's used as a political tool to block construction for NIMBY reasons, and as a way to line the pockets of those involved in the study.

No, there is a lot unnecessary red tape involved with them. They aren't used as a political pawn.