The Adirondacks, a Howitzer, and the Case for Unconventional Concepts
There is a point in almost every prolonged dispute with government when the original controversy begins to disappear beneath the process surrounding it. The technical questions remain. The lawyers continue filing papers. Agencies continue conducting proceedings. Opponents continue objecting. Applicants continue responding. Yet eventually another question becomes impossible to ignore: what happens when one party has the institutional ability to continue indefinitely and the other does not?
That is the larger issue I see in the dispute involving Unconventional Concepts, Inc. The application may concern an unusual defense-research operation in the Adirondacks, but the principle exposed by the fight is ordinary enough to affect almost anyone. Government possesses something private citizens and businesses rarely possess in comparable quantities: time. When government controls the process, controls many of the procedural requirements, possesses institutional legal resources, and survives regardless of how long a proceeding continues, time itself can become an exercise of power.
That does not mean every delay is intentional. It does not mean every regulator involved in a lengthy proceeding is acting maliciously. Bureaucracies can produce delay without anybody sitting behind a desk consciously deciding to destroy a project. Complicated laws, overlapping responsibilities, inadequate staffing, legitimate requests for information, public participation, litigation, administrative procedure, and technical complexity can all consume time. Accountability requires acknowledging those realities. Intent, however, is not the only thing that matters. Outcomes matter too.
A regulatory process that takes long enough can kill an otherwise viable project regardless of whether anyone formally decides to kill it. The applicant continues paying lawyers, engineers, consultants, employees, insurance, administrative expenses, and other costs while the government continues deliberating. Capital that could have been invested elsewhere remains exposed to uncertainty. Business opportunities disappear. Partners reconsider commitments. Employees move on. Eventually the regulated party may reach a point at which winning the permit no longer matters because surviving the process required to obtain it has become economically irrational. Government never needs to issue a denial under those circumstances. It only needs to remain standing longer than the applicant.
That possibility is why the history of UCI's application deserves scrutiny far beyond the question of whether one believes artillery testing belongs in the Adirondacks. The application began in November 2021. The APA subsequently issued six Notices of Incomplete Permit Application before determining the application complete in September 2025. The matter then continued through public comment and into an adjudicatory process. Whatever conclusion one ultimately reaches about responsibility for each stage of that timeline, the cumulative result is undeniable: years have passed without a final permit determination.
The existence of delay alone does not establish abuse. That needs to be stated plainly. A complicated application can take a long time because an applicant fails to provide necessary information, because legitimate environmental questions require additional study, because litigation interrupts the administrative process, or because the governing law requires procedural steps that cannot responsibly be compressed. If UCI caused substantial portions of the delay, that belongs in the record and in any fair assessment of the case. But the longer a governmental proceeding continues, the stronger the government's obligation becomes to explain why.
That principle is essential because the economic consequences of delay are not distributed equally. The APA does not cease to exist if this proceeding lasts another year. Its statutory authority does not expire because UCI spends another dollar. The state does not lose its ability to regulate the Adirondack Park because an applicant becomes exhausted. Government possesses continuity by design. Private enterprises do not.
That structural imbalance is not inherently improper. Government needs institutional permanence precisely because laws cannot depend upon whether a particular business can afford to comply with them. But institutional permanence becomes dangerous when it is accompanied by insufficient accountability for the use of time. A state powerful enough to regulate private activity must also be disciplined enough to reach decisions. The alternative is government by exhaustion.
This is not exclusively an environmental issue, nor is it uniquely an Adirondack problem. The same underlying imbalance exists whenever an ordinary person or business encounters an administrative system. A property owner seeking approval to build, a manufacturer attempting to expand, a contractor pursuing authorization, a professional seeking a license, or an entrepreneur trying to navigate state requirements may encounter different agencies and different statutes, but the underlying relationship is remarkably similar. Government establishes the process. Government interprets the rules. Government frequently possesses greater legal and institutional resources. Government can wait. The individual standing across from it frequently cannot.
That is why due process cannot be reduced to whether somebody received another hearing or another opportunity to submit paperwork. Procedural activity and procedural fairness are not synonymous. A system can produce thousands of pages of documentation and still fail to provide a timely, comprehensible answer. At some point, due process must include the government's obligation to decide.
The distinction becomes particularly important when regulatory standards are difficult to identify. As I discussed in the previous article, Michael Hopmeier of UCI has told me that the company attempted to engage the APA and other parties concerning possible operating parameters that could make the proposed activity acceptable. His account is that those efforts did not produce meaningful negotiations over measurable alternatives. Those are his representations, and they must be distinguished from independently established findings. But if the documentary record substantiates them, they create a serious question about whether UCI has been participating in a process capable of producing an acceptable version of the project at all.
There is an enormous difference between a government saying, "You may conduct this activity if you satisfy A, B, and C," and a process in which the applicant cannot determine whether satisfying A, B, and C will merely produce D, E, and F. The first is regulation. The second can become attrition.
This is also why the conduct of parties outside the Agency deserves examination. Environmental organizations, neighboring landowners, municipalities, experts, attorneys, and other participants have legitimate rights to participate in a proceeding that may affect them. Public participation is not an obstacle to democracy; it is part of democracy. A property owner affected by noise or another environmental impact should not be silenced simply because the proposed activity involves defense research. An environmental organization does not become illegitimate merely because it opposes a project supported by a private company.
But participation carries its own responsibility when participants seek to influence governmental power. Claims should be supported. Technical conclusions should withstand technical scrutiny. If an alleged environmental impact can be quantified, it should be quantified. If mitigation is possible, mitigation should be discussed. If no mitigation could ever make the activity acceptable, that position should be stated clearly enough that everyone understands the actual dispute. There is little accountability in forcing an applicant to negotiate against an objection that has no identifiable endpoint.
The same standard applies to UCI. The company should not receive the benefit of the doubt merely because it describes its work as defense research. If its safety analysis is deficient, identify the deficiency. If its acoustical analysis is wrong, demonstrate why. If the proposed firing activity presents an environmental impact that cannot be adequately mitigated, establish that through evidence. If UCI has failed to provide information reasonably requested by the Agency, document the failure. Then make the decision. That last part is crucial.
The purpose of an administrative process cannot simply be the continuation of the administrative process. Government exists to govern. Agencies investigate, regulate, deliberate, and conduct hearings because eventually those activities are supposed to produce decisions. The legitimacy of administrative authority depends in part upon the public believing that the process is directed toward an outcome rather than functioning as an outcome in itself. That public confidence becomes even more important when government possesses enormous discretionary authority over private property.
The Adirondack Park presents a particularly difficult version of this problem because the state is balancing interests that genuinely matter. Environmental preservation matters. Private-property rights matter. Public safety matters. Economic activity matters. The interests of neighboring residents matter. Defense research matters. None of those interests automatically eliminates the others. The difficult job of government is to weigh them. Government cannot escape that responsibility merely because making the decision will anger somebody.
If the application should be denied, deny it and explain why. If it should be approved, approve it with whatever lawful conditions the evidence supports. If additional information remains genuinely necessary, identify exactly what information remains missing and explain why it is necessary to reach the decision. What should not become acceptable is perpetual uncertainty.
That principle should matter particularly to elected officials. Legislators and candidates frequently speak about government accountability in broad terms. It is an easy phrase to use because almost everyone agrees with it abstractly. The real test comes when accountability requires examining the conduct of an institution with an admirable mission.
The Adirondack Park Agency's mission is important. Protecting the Adirondacks is important. Neither fact should immunize the Agency from scrutiny.
Accountability is most meaningful precisely when the institution being questioned performs work we consider valuable. Otherwise, oversight becomes nothing more than a weapon used against agencies or officials we already dislike. A serious commitment to accountable government means demanding transparency, competence, evidence, and reasonable procedure regardless of whether we support the underlying mission.
That is the standard I believe should be applied here. The question is not whether the APA is good or bad. The question is not whether UCI is good or bad. The question is whether the government has exercised its authority properly in this particular case.
That inquiry requires looking at documents rather than slogans. It requires reconstructing the sequence of requests and responses. It requires examining what information the Agency sought, what UCI provided, what opponents alleged, what technical evidence supports those allegations, and where responsibility for delay actually belongs. It may ultimately produce conclusions that are uncomfortable for more than one party. That is precisely why the inquiry is necessary.
Government accountability cannot depend upon predetermined heroes and villains. If UCI made mistakes, those mistakes belong in this story. If UCI contributed materially to the length of the proceeding, that belongs here too. If the APA acted reasonably at particular stages, I will say so. If opponents produced legitimate evidence of environmental or safety concerns, that evidence deserves to be examined rather than dismissed. But the reverse must also be true.
If government imposed unnecessary delay, that belongs in the story. If requirements changed or expanded without adequate justification, that belongs in the story. If technical objections were advanced without technical support, that belongs in the story. If parties refused meaningful attempts to determine whether compromise was possible, that belongs in the story. And if the evidence ultimately demonstrates that the process itself became a mechanism capable of defeating the application without requiring the government to make a timely decision, that deserves considerably more than a footnote. It deserves public scrutiny. Because the precedent is larger than one company.
Most people will never own a defense-research company. Most will never attempt to fire a 155-millimeter howitzer. Most will never participate in an APA adjudicatory proceeding. It would therefore be easy to look at this dispute and conclude that it has nothing to do with them. That would be a mistake.
The relevant principle appears whenever the government has enough power to make the process itself consequential. It appears when obtaining permission takes so long that the opportunity disappears. It appears when a regulated party cannot determine what compliance requires. It appears when the financial cost of defending one's position becomes greater than the value of winning. And it appears whenever government can avoid accountability for an ultimate decision because time accomplishes what an official denial would have accomplished openly.
A government powerful enough to say no must also be accountable enough to say it. That principle is not anti-government. It is a requirement of good government.
New York can protect the Adirondacks and respect due process. It can impose rigorous environmental standards and still provide regulatory certainty. It can demand competent evidence from private companies while demanding the same intellectual rigor from agencies and organizations opposing them. It can protect neighboring residents without treating economic development or defense research as inherently illegitimate.
These objectives are not mutually exclusive. What makes them difficult is that achieving them requires government to make decisions and accept responsibility for those decisions. After years of proceedings, UCI deserves neither automatic approval nor special treatment. It deserves what every citizen and every business standing before government should be able to expect: a clearly defined standard, a fair evaluation of the evidence, and an answer. And the public deserves something as well. We deserve to know who is responsible when government takes years to provide one.
That is the case for accountability.