It really all comes down to civil vs. common law. In America, anyone can hold you over a barrel in court, indefinitely, for any or no reason, until you agree to their extortion.

unfortunately it is worse than that.. a basic and non-trivial State of California project was being done in an office near me, and I knew some of the people. So I saw a bit about how it progressed.. lots of requirements, lots of people from multiple unrelated and slightly competitive groups. The work was mostly intellectual assesment and evaluations with a lot of reports. The thing was funded at professional values.

About six months of work with lots of progress meetings with State of California bureaucrats to "keep them informed" .. and lo-and-behold.. as the required deadlines started getting closer, the State reps changed requirements, made amendments to deliverables.. the last three weeks, even MORE change orders "non-negotiable" .. I have never in my life seen major requirements changed on a multi-party project in the last weeks of a deadline like that. It was like the bureaucrats drank a lot of something, felt the "excitement" and HAD to change things to be "involved and hands on" .. it was STUPID and caused DAMAGE. There was no choice -- the State was paying.

That is how they do things in "infinite income" Sacramento ?

What does that have to do with civil vs. common law? There isn't anything inherent in rule of law based on cases and precedent that should restrict infrastructure projects.