The Trump administration has changed a major environmental law to speed up infrastructure projects like highways and pipelines, a move critics say could also make it harder for Americans to have a say in the planning process.
President Donald Trump announced that the administration has completed a “top-down review” of the National Environmental Policy Act, a crucial law often referred to as the “Magna Carta” of environmental policy.
“For decades, the biggest obstacle to building a modern transportation system has been the mountains and mountains of bureaucracy in Washington, DC,” Trump said Wednesday in remarks at a UPS facility in Atlanta, Georgia.
The National Environmental Policy Law is one of the first major environmental laws created in the 1960s and 1970s when the country faced widespread problems with poor water and air quality. The law emerged in part as a way to give citizens a voice in government projects after black communities protested plans to demolish parts of their neighborhoods to build roads.
NEPA requires government agencies to assess the impact of a proposal on the environment and the surrounding community and give the public an opportunity to raise concerns or propose changes to the government plan.
“We are doing something very dramatic. We have just completed an unprecedented infrastructure approval process, not to say that it is absolutely unprecedented, from top to bottom, it should have been done years ago,” Trump said Wednesday. “This approval process that has cost billions of dollars over the years for our country and delays like you would not believe. This is a truly historic advance that means better roads, bridges, tunnels, and highways, for every UPS driver and each citizen through our land. “
The White House said the new rule would speed up plans as a lane expansion project on I-75 that would allow more cargo and commercial vehicle traffic. But critics of the decision say they are especially concerned that it will make it harder for communities most negatively affected by pollution, including communities of color, to express themselves, especially as the COVID-19 pandemic has hit them hardest.
“This is a clear attempt to silence and marginalize people to make it easier for the industry to pollute our communities. We will not leave it standing,” the president and CEO of the Natural Resources Defense Council and former president said in a statement. EPA chief Gina McCarthy.
“People have the right to evaluate before a highway project destroys their neighborhood or a pipeline goes through their backyard. Progressing their concerns will mean more polluted air, more polluted water, more health threats, and more environmental destruction.”
The Trump administration and many industry groups argue that NEPA has become obsolete and that the environmental review process, which often faces threats of litigation from environmental groups, has become too long and cumbersome. Trump signed an executive order in June allowing the administration to speed up projects as part of the economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, but the Environmental Quality Council was already moving ahead with more long-term changes to the law.
The changes finalized this week would set a time limit for environmental reviews for federal projects and, in some cases, could limit the scope of the review to focus more specifically on the impact of a project. It would also limit comments the government should take into account for those raising specific concerns about a plan rather than broader concerns about the cumulative impact of all natural gas pipelines, for example.
Experts working on NEPA cases have dismissed criticism that the law and external trials are to blame for the lengthy process of approving federal projects. They say part of the problem is a lack of funding for projects and that federal agencies conducting environmental reviews and requests for review permits have lost funds and personnel.
Still, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Andrew Wheeler, said delays in infrastructure projects can increase existing environmental problems, using the example of idle cars that release exhaust gases and pollution while in the traffic.
“President Trump is an infrastructure chief. He knows how to build infrastructure, he knows what the impediments have been, and the federal permitting process has been too cumbersome for people across the country,” Wheeler said in an interview with Gray TV.
“So it’s about speeding up that process but doing it in a thoughtful way that still protects the environment.”
Wednesday’s announcement comes a day after former Vice President Joe Biden announced a plan for a COVID-19 recovery focused on sustainable infrastructure, including a $ 2 trillion investment in transportation infrastructure that can resist climate change, expanding the electricity sector to reduce pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. and provide incentives to improve buildings and homes. Biden also announced a portion of his plan specifically focused on providing more investment in disadvantaged communities and making environmental justice a higher priority.
Trump said Biden wants the process for new infrastructure projects to be longer and that a Biden administration will “regulate” the energy economy and force companies to shut down.
In response to the announcement, the Biden campaign criticized Trump for “cutting corners” and ignoring science and communities calling for clean air and water.
“No one should be fooled because Donald Trump is trying to destroy a fundamental bipartisan law to distract himself from the fact that” Infrastructure Week “never happened and will never happen as long as he is president,” said Matt Hill, spokesman for the Biden campaign in a statement.
Environmental advocates and democratic lawmakers say the changes to NEPA are a step backward in efforts to combat long-standing systemic racism.
“Polluters have become accustomed to building massive pipelines, chemical refineries, waste incinerators, and other public health hazards in communities of color for generations, and the National Environmental Policy Act is one of the strictest laws we have to prevent it.” , Raul representatives. Grijalva and Donald McEachin said in a statement.
They added that “this country faces a test of environmental justice, and President Trump has failed in a colossal way with today’s announcement.”
ABC’s Andy Field reports to ABC News Radio:
ABC News’s Molly Nagle contributed to this report.
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