White House plan would reduce environmental requirements for infrastructure projects
Source: The Washington Post
By Juliet Eilperin and Michael Laris January 26 at 5:40 PM
The White House has drafted a proposal to scale back environmental requirements in an effort to make it easier to construct roads, bridges and pipelines across the country as part of an infrastructure plan that President Trump could release as soon as next week, according to a document obtained by The Washington Post.
The plan would change things such as how officials decide a pipeline route, how a proposed border wall with Mexico would be built and whether the National Park Service could object to a development that would impair tourists’ views from scenic parks such as the Grand Canyon.
Administration officials — who have briefed GOP lawmakers, multiple trade associations and other groups about their plans — have emphasized they are willing to alter elements of the legislative package to win enough votes to pass it in the Senate. But they have made it clear they are seeking to make the most sweeping changes in decades to how the federal government approves and oversees infrastructure projects.
“We have no intention of eroding environmental protections,” said Alex Hergott, associate director of infrastructure at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, when he addressed the Transportation Research Board’s annual conference earlier this month. “However, there is no denying that there is duplication and redundancy in the process that is worth taking a hard look at.”
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/white-house-plan-would-reduce-environmental-requirements-for-infrastructure-projects/2018/01/26/b15bd66a-0248-11e8-8acf-ad2991367d9d_story.html
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One of their very first actions last year was to repeal the law that kept coal companies from cutting off the tops of mountains and tossing them into stream valleys.
VOX's analysis was that they did it immediately, not for business profits, but mainly because they could and it was an easy target. Right after this they repealed a SEC rule requiring drilling and mining corporations to reveal their payments to foreign governments.
Anti-regulation fervor has grown to religious level for some of these people, a high principle for all, and they've been busy dismantling and rewriting limits on harmful profiteering ever since.
