President Donald Trump announced Thursday that his administration would change requirements for environmental reviews, making it easier to get projects approved.
“These endless delays waste money, keep projects from breaking ground, and deny jobs to our nation’s incredible workers,” Trump said, explaining why he was rolling back some of the 40-year-old regulations.
The president announced the plan to modernize the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) at the White House.
The new rule changes will help block lawsuits from well-funded environmental groups that slow or derail important projects.
“It’s big government at it’s absolute worst,” Trump said, citing nightmare scenarios of 15-20 year delays for important infrastructure projects.
The reformed NEPA regulations would establish time limits of two years for completion of environmental impact statements and one year for completion of environmental assessments, according to the White House.
Department of Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, Department of the Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler all spoke in favor of the rule, noting that it would restore common sense to the aging NEPA regulations and dramatically speed up the approval process.
“The NEPA process today is too bureaucratic and burdensome and has delayed important environmental projects,” Wheeler said, criticizing the current permitting process as a “Frankenstein of a regulatory regime” and a “welfare program for trial attorneys.”
Read more at Breitbart
I’ll be interested to see the federal register notice(s) and the details on these proposed NEPA amendments. Of course, the environmental NGO’s will immediately file lawsuits, so be ready for a media campaign that “skewers” the Administrations proposal. Let’s face it. This is LONG overdue for an overhaul, especially on larger infrastructure projects which have become “targets” for continuing activist ABUSE of the regulatory process. Look no further than the recent developments on the Mountain Valley pipeline project. Just the continuation of the same obstructionist mantra. Of course the environmental NGO’s (i.e. Sierra Club, WildEarth Guardians, NRDC, et al) are going to “shriek.” The trial attorney GRAVY TRAIN may be pulling out of the station. GOOD!
THIS is how to drain the swamp.
And there’s no environmental impact review necessary !
Benefits galore.
As President Reagan had said, so many times it is government that is the problem. Trump has a solution for that in these cases. Finally!
Absurd and stringent environmental regulations have add several trillion dollars to the US economy since EPA was created by Richard Nixon. Every regulation costs any product several billion dollars for every life saved… supposedly saved, but not demonstrated. Lower those costs and no country in the world could compite with America.
Make these Eco-Freaks live in Grass hut all winter long lets see how long they can hack it without anything to keep them warm all winter long their trouble is they have no idea or where their everyday products come from and how their dependent on Fossil Fuels