Trump Rolls Back Environmental Law To Speed Up Infrastructure Projects, Experts Call It "Biggest Give Away For Polluters"

The Trump Administration announced regulatory changes to the National Environmental Policy Act on July 15, an amendment that will fast-track approval of federal projects such as mines, highways, water infrastructure, and gas pipelines.

US President Donald Trump announced the implementation of the revised regulations in Georgia at the UPS Hapeville Airport Hub, which is expected to benefit from the highway expansion project that will help increase the efficiency of the hub's operations.

Trump said that "mountains and mountains of red tape" slowed the development of infrastructure projects, adding that "all of that ends today."

"Today's action completely modernizes the environmental review process under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969. We are cutting the federal permitting timeline ... for a major project from up to 20 years or more ... down to two years or less," Trump said.

Trump ordered his administration to rewrite the NEPA regulations in January, saying that the existing regulations led to "endless delays, waste money, keep projects from breaking ground and deny jobs to our nation's incredible workers."

The administration claims that the change will speed up the process for getting environmental reviews approved that are needed for major infrastructure projects. However, environmental advocacy groups believe that the change will affect minority communities more than anyone else.

"You spend three, four, five years on the environmental review before you ever break ground. That's a problem," Environmental Protection Agency administrator Andrew Wheeler said.

Environmental advocacy groups see the policy change as another example of the Trump administration quashing important conservation safety guards that protect the environment and public health from pollution.

The change "drastically curtails environmental reviews for thousands of federal agency projects nationwide, a move that will weaken safeguards for air, water, wildlife and public lands," the Center for Biological Diversity, an advocacy group said.

NEPA was signed into law in 1970 by President Richard Nixon and is one of the foundational environmental laws formed at the commencement of the modern environmental movement.

Rolling back this policy "may be the single biggest giveaway to polluters in the past 40 years," Brett Hartl, Center for Biological Diversity government affairs director said.

"The Trump administration is turning back the clock to when rivers caught fire, our air was unbreathable, and our most beloved wildlife was spiraling toward extinction. The foundational law of the modern environmental movement has been turned into a rubber stamp to enrich for-profit corporations, and we doubt the courts will stand for that," Hartl said in a statement.

However, in support of the changes announed, Mike Sommers, President and CEO of the American Petroleum Institute said that the regulatory changes are "essential to US energy leadership and environmental progress, providing more certainty to jumpstart not only the modernized pipeline infrastructure we need to deliver cleaner fuels but highways, bridges and renewable energy."

He claimed that the changes "will help accelerate the nation's economic recovery and advance energy infrastructure while continuing necessary environmental reviews."

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