Trump Announces Rollback of Environmental Laws for Infrastructure Projects in Atlanta

(July 15) President Donald Trump is ready to roll back a foundational Nixon-era environmental law that he says stifles major infrastructure projects, but that environmentalists say has served for decades as a safeguard for low-income and minority communities.

Trump was traveling to Atlanta on Wednesday to formally announce changes to the National Environmental Policy Act’s regulations for conducting environmental reviews, making it easier to build highways, pipelines, chemical plants and other projects. When Trump first announced the effort in January, the administration set a two-year deadline for completing full environmental impact reviews while less comprehensive assessments would have to be completed within one year. The White House said the final rule will promote the rebuilding of America.

Critics call the Republican president’s efforts a cynical attempt to limit the public’s ability to review, comment on and influence proposed projects under one of the country’s bedrock environmental protection laws.

“This may be the single biggest giveaway to polluters in the past 40 years,” said Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group that works to save endangered species.

Trump has made slashing government regulation a hallmark of his presidency and held it out as a way to boost jobs. Environmental groups say the regulatory rollbacks threaten public health and make it harder to curb global warming. With Congress and the administration divided over how to increase infrastructure investment, the president is relying on his deregulation push to demonstrate progress.

“The United States can’t compete and prosper if a bureaucratic system holds us back from building what we need,” Trump said when first announcing the rollback of National Environmental Policy Act rules.

Opponents say the change will have an inordinate impact on predominantly minority communities. More than 1 million African Americans live within a half-mile of natural gas facilities and face a cancer risk above the Environmental Protection Agency’s level of concern from toxins emitted by those facilities, according to a 2017 study by the Clean Air Task Force and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

“Donald Trump is taking away the last lines of defense for front-line communities, and continues to demonstrate a total disregard for our environment and for those demanding racial and environmental justice,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

For his announcement, Trump chose Georgia, a swing state in the general election. Trump won the Republican-leaning state by 5 percentage points in 2016, but some polls show him trailing former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee. This will be Trump’s ninth trip to Georgia and his sixth visit to Atlanta during his presidency.

The president’s trip also comes as the state has seen coronavirus cases surge and now has tallied more than 12,000 confirmed cases and more than 3,000 deaths.

Jon Ossoff, a Democrat who is running against incumbent Republican Sen. David Perdue, said Trump’s decision to come to Georgia to discuss infrastructure as the state’s coronavirus crisis worsens demonstrates that the president is “in denial and out of control.”

“Coming here for a routine photo-op is, frankly, bizarre, surreal against this unprecedented health and economic crisis,” Ossoff said.

Judd Deere, a White House spokesman, said that if Ossoff views a major policy announcement to expedite critical infrastructure projects as anything other than about job growth and economic expansion, then it might explain why he lost a congressional race in 2017.

The White House said the administration’s efforts will expedite the expansion of Interstate 75 near Atlanta, an important freight route where traffic can often slow to a crawl. The state will create two interstate lanes designed solely for commercial trucks. The state announced last fall, before the White House unveiled its proposed rule, that it was moving up the deadline for substantially completing the project to 2028.

Thousands of Americans on both sides of the new federal rule wrote to the Council on Environmental Quality to voice their opinions.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce cited a North Carolina bridge in its letter as an example of unreasonable delays, saying the bridge that connected Hatteras Island to Bodie Island took 25 years to complete, but only three y

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[santinamarie]

If Trump catches the coronavirus, who will be left to make the world great again?

[edmsing]

This American President is threatening to rollback current overfishing
regulations causing two devastating effects, 1) fewer fish for future generations
of fishermen, 2) the increased pursuit of humans at beaches by predatory sea
creatures, with them wonder if they should ask for a beverage too.

[moyo]

anyone else notice how he never gives any details at all? He says he improved it but he wont say how.

[randyroggenbuck]

Tear up all the grass, cut down all the trees, pollute all the water. We need streets, freeways, bridges, tunnels and roads to make sure that we put this country that much farther in debt

[crunchrYouTube]

He will be defeated by the likes you have never

[whiteclover]

Who else is a kid and is just looking at all these adults?

[patriciagriffin]

Just how much ruin can he add to the Am govt bf he leaves

[BryceBelle]

I think 2020 is the year the world actually will end.

[jlaw]

Well that was one of my favorite songs by Genesis. I will never be able to unhear that. Damn it!

[jamese]

I was hoping Trump could go through the maze of regulations on the right side in order for us to understand the simplicity of the shortened regulations on the left. I guess I was expecting too much from our genius president.

[ryanjohnson]

After "Live and Let die" intro song they should have played "From Russia with love".

[crunchrYouTube]

@ 43:06 his face is all shiny. He has a fever...COVID19 Alert he is spreading his droplets.

[yellolab]

Good Lord

EVERYTHING he touches dies

FAST

[ZooomaCW]

Bloomberg a Democrats channel? Trump speech therefore downvoted? Unwarranted. Very good speech about real American progress. Does NOT deserve a down vote.

[larrysherk]

The state of our environment represents an existential threat and is a million times more important than some long neglected infrastructure.

[jeffbarron]

He said 750 pages ? Why not remove all regs and rules then it would only be 12 pages and trump himself could almost read this non-stop and cover to cover in less then a single day

[kobanmax]

You want my vote? Get rid of gavin newsome

[ZooomaCW]

I wonder if Mr. Neil Young knows Trump plays his music. I'm sure he wouldn't be happy. Oh well.

[TerryNovakM]

They need to stop using the song "live and let die" in Trumps campaign. Its disrespectful.

[williamroyer]

Donald the crook is probably not paying for these songs or getting consent to play them