A dozen federal agencies on Monday signed an agreement intended to speed up infrastructure projects by expediting the environmental review process.
The leaders of at least 12 agencies signed a “memo of understanding,” which implements an executive order signed by President Trump in August.
Trump presided over a signing ceremony after a Cabinet meeting Monday.
Signing the memo were the departments of Energy, Interior, Transportation, Commerce, Agriculture, Housing and Urban Development, and Homeland Security, the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and more.
Trump’s Aug. 15 executive order calls for “timely decisions” on projects with the goal of completing “environmental reviews and authorization decisions for major infrastructure projects within two years.”
Under the agreement implementing the order, federal agencies will have to conduct environmental reviews at the same time, rather than doing consecutive reviews, to speed up the process.
The main agency with expertise will lead the permitting review process, setting timelines for the other agencies to follow. The agencies will produce a single environmental impact statement for a project.
“Inefficient environmental review processes have led to unnecessary delays, depriving our communities of needed infrastructure projects,” the White House said Monday in promoting the change.
Republicans cheered the move, describing it as progress in advancing projects more efficiently.
“Time is money,” said Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Pa., the chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. “Reviewing and approving infrastructure projects in the most efficient way possible is critical to our nation’s efforts in building 21st century infrastructure and keeping project costs from escalating. I am pleased that the administration is exercising the authority provided by Congress to streamline the review process for infrastructure projects. Today’s announcement is a positive step forward in the fight against inefficient, bureaucratic permitting.”
Permitting reform is a key plank of Trump’s infrastructure investment plan announced in February.
The administration’s proposal aims to spend $200 billion in federal funding to spur a total of $1.5 trillion in infrastructure investment, with states, localities, and private industry covering the difference.
It calls for changes in how the government conducts the reviews, including streamlining the National Environmental Policy Act’s requirements and potential changes to the Clean Water and Clean Air acts.
The Trump plan aims to reduce the time a state has to issue water permits required under the Clean Water Act to build interstate natural gas pipelines.
States such as New York have used that provision to halt pipeline projects.
Trump’s proposal also allows some revenue from energy development on public lands to be used to pay for capital and maintenance costs of infrastructure built on federal lands.
Democratic lawmakers have panned Trump’s proposal to “streamline” environmental reviews, arguing that doing so would harm protections for natural habitat and endangered species.
The plan is not progressing in Congress, and chances are slim it will advance in a year with midterm elections.
• This article has been updated.
