Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
President-elect Trump indicated on Tuesday that he will give accelerated approvals to projects that invest at least $1 billion in the US economy.
“Any person or company investing ONE BILLION DOLLARS, OR MORE, in the United States of America will receive fully expedited approvals and permits, including, but not limited to, all environmental approvals,” Trump said. he wrote in a post on Social Truth.
“Get ready to rock!!!” he added.
The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), one of the foundations of the nation environmental laws – requires federal agencies to do so environmental reviews before taking actions such as approving power production and approving infrastructure projects such as pipelines and highways.
Many companies and corporate lobbyists have long complained about the length of these reviews, saying they can lead to long and costly delays.
William Buzbee, a law professor at Georgetown University, told The Hill in an email that the president may ask agencies to “act promptly on particular high-priority actions.”
However, he said those requests “will at most only indicate some prioritized actions, with agencies still required to follow NEPA’s mandates and process.”
He said the law does not provide for a “statutory fast track for large investments in large projects”.
“Indeed, the greater the effects, the more searching and careful agencies must be if they hope to survive subsequent judicial review,” he wrote.
Trump’s post comes on the same day as the Supreme Court heard arguments on whether to limit NEPA’s reach to exclude certain indirect environmental impacts, although it is unclear whether the publication was related to the case.
Environmental activists, meanwhile, rejected Trump’s plan.
“Corporate polluters cannot bribe their way into endangering our communities and our clean air and water,” Mahyar Sorour, the Sierra Club’s director of policy beyond fossil fuels, said in a statement.
“We will continue to fight to defend our fundamental environmental protections and make sure they apply to everyone, not just those who can’t pay Trump’s bribe,” Sorour added.
Updated at 4:04 p.m. ET.
