Sweeping changes to environmental oversight proposed
Plan would have limited impact in California due to stricter regulations in the state
WASHINGTON » In a dramatic rollback of environmental oversight, President Donald Trump took action Thursday to clear the way and speed up development of a wide range of commercial projects by cutting back federal review of their impact on the environment.
“The United States can’t compete and prosper if a bureaucratic system holds us back from building what we need,” Trump said at the White House, surrounded by Cabinet secretaries, industry leaders and workers in hard hats.
Trump’s proposal calls for greatly narrowing the scope of the half- century- old National Environmental Policy Act, which was signed by President Richard Nixon in 1970. That law changed environmental oversight in the country by requiring federal agencies to consider whether a project would harm the air, land, water or wildlife, and giving the public the right of review and input.
The proposal, which is certain to be challenged in court by environmental groups, is expected to have limited impact in California, which has its own similar state law that is unaffected by the Trump administration proposal.
That law, the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, was signed by former Gov. Ronald Reagan in 1970.
It requires environmental impact reports for major state and local projects so the public and political leaders can see potential impacts on traffic, water quality, air pollution, wildlife, greenhouse gases, and other issues when developers or government agencies propose major construction — from highways to housing subdivisions. Even if the Trump administration’s proposed rollbacks survive a court challenge, they are expected to be overturned by the next Democratic president.
Trump, who has targeted environmental rules in his drive to ease the way for business, said enforcement of the law had slowed federal approval of projects. “America’s most critical infrastructure projects have been tied up and bogged down by an outrageously slow and burdensome federal approval process,” he said. “The builders are not happy. Nobody’s happy.”
Environmental groups and Democratic lawmakers said the proposed rollback would gut major environmental protections and take away the public’s right to know and comment on a project’s potential harms. Key among the changes proposed is one that would newly limit the requirement for federal environmental review to projects that have major federal funding. The change would mean a range of predominantly privately funded and managed projects would not fall under the law’s requirement for federal environmental study and for public review and comment.
The Trump administration has pushed hard for pipeline building to move ahead despite local challenges, along with calling for shortening the time and length of environmental reviews for projects.
Nixon signed the National Environmental Policy Act into law as public outrage over the 1969 oil spill off Santa Barbara, and other pollution of the country’s air, water and land spurred creation of the country’s major environmental protections. The Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act were among the other major environmental acts that followed.