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Politics

Trump overhauls environmental review as part of infrastructure plan

By
Ebony Bowden
Published July 15, 2020
Updated July 15, 2020, 5:06 p.m. ET

President Trump is rolling back the nation’s main environmental review law in a bid to speed up the construction of freeways and other infrastructure projects, describing it as a job killer and “horrible roadblock.”

Speaking before a crowd at a UPS warehouse in Atlanta, Trump announced he was signing an executive order overhauling the 50-year-old National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, which he said had stymied important projects and limited economic growth.

“For decades, the single biggest obstacle to building a modern transportation system has been the mountains and mountains of bureaucratic red tape in Washington, DC,” he said.

“Before I took office, reviews for highways ballooned to an average of nearly 750 pages in length and they were the good ones, they were the short ones,” he continued.

The NEPA was signed into law by President Richard Nixon in 1970 and requires federal agencies to consider the environmental impacts of major projects before they are approved, allowing public groups and local communities to weigh in.

Environmental groups accused the Trump administration of “gutting” important regulations protecting poor communities impacted by power plants and pipelines in their neighborhoods.

“NEPA gives poor and communities of color a say in the projects that will define their communities for decades to come,” Sharon Buccino, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, told NPR on Thursday.

“Rather than listen, the Trump administration’s plan aims to silence such voices,” she added.

Speaking in Georgia, where local leaders have been lobbying for a lane expansion to the Interstate 75, Trump said permits which previously took 20 years to be approved would now be reviewed in two years or less.

“I’ve been wanting to do this from day one, literally on day one,” Trump said, recounting his own experience with NEPA as a property developer in New York.

According to the White House, federal agencies today take an average four and a half years to conduct the required reviews of major infrastructure projects like highways.

The president has reversed more than 100 environmental rules since taking office, according to a New York Times analysis, including fuel efficiency standards which earned a rebuke from his predecessor Barack Obama.