President Trump announced Wednesday a new federal rule to eliminate bureaucratic red tape and speed up environmental review processes for highways, gas pipelines and other proposed major infrastructure.
The rule, which Trump unveiled at a UPS facility in Atlanta, is expected to make it easier to meet some of the country’s infrastructure needs, but critics have described it as the dismantling of an environmental protection law for 50 years.
“This is a top-down review of the infrastructure approval process,” Trump said. “These horrible obstacles were presented to us, things couldn’t be done.”
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Trump, who throughout his presidency has lamented the state of America’s roads and other infrastructure, promised that the new rule will speed up repairs on American roads and also reduce the time drivers sit in traffic.
“This is a great time,” he said. “Our bridge, tunnels and highways will no longer be a place of shame, but a source of pride.”
Critics call the Republican president’s efforts a cynical attempt to limit the public’s ability to review, comment on, and influence projects proposed under the National Environmental Policy Act, one of the country’s environmental protection laws.
“President Trump is bringing a jackhammer to the foundation of environmental protections in our country,” Lara Levison, senior director of federal policy for the environmental group Oceana, said in a statement to Fox News. “President Trump is weakening our voices and our right to express concerns. Anyone who values our environment should be outraged by these expected changes. “
Trump has made reducing government regulation a hallmark of his presidency and presenting it as a way to boost jobs. But environmental groups have said regulatory pullbacks threaten public health and hinder global warming. With Congress and administration divided on how to boost investment in infrastructure, the president is confident in his deregulation push to demonstrate progress.
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The White House said the administration’s efforts will expedite the expansion of Interstate 75 near Atlanta, a major cargo route where traffic can often slow down. The state will create two interstate lanes designed exclusively for commercial trucks. The state announced last fall, before the White House revealed its proposed rule, that it was bringing the deadline to substantially complete the project to 2028.
Thousands of Americans on both sides of the new federal rule wrote to the Environmental Quality Council to express their views.
The United States Chamber of Commerce cited a North Carolina bridge in its letter as an example of unreasonable delays, saying that the bridge connecting Hatteras Island to Bodie Island took 25 years to complete, but only three years to build.
“Failure to obtain timely approval of projects and land management decisions is also hampering economic growth,” the business group wrote.
The Natural Resources Defense Council said that when Congress passed the National Environmental Policy Act 50 years ago, it did so with the understanding that environmental well-being is compatible with economic well-being. The proposed rule, he said, would lead federal agencies to make decisions with significant environmental impacts without considering those impacts in advance.
“At the end of the day, it would lead to bad decisions, more litigation and less transparency,” said Sharon Buccino, senior director of the environmental group.
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Georgia is expected to be a decisive state in the November general election. While Trump won the Republican trend status by 5 percentage points in 2016, some current polls show him behind former Vice President Joe Biden, the alleged Democratic candidate.
While Trump mostly stayed on the script during his time on stage in Atlanta, he shot Biden and the progressive Democrats, and discovered a common concern for him: voting by mail.
“There has been tremendous corruption,” Trump said of the vote by mail. “It is a terrible situation if they decide to use it.”
The demand for mail ballots has increased amid the current coronavirus pandemic, as many people fear becoming infected if they line up at the ballot box.
While Trump regularly derides the process as manipulated, there is no evidence of fraud, and his own re-election team is adjusting to the new reality of widespread voting by mail.
Associated Press contributed to this report.
