Trump moves fast on pipeline projects

He signs 5 executive actions on energy, infrastructure

President Trump signed five more executive actions Tuesday in a blitz of executive power meant to speed approvals of high- profile energy and infrastructure projects, including two controversial pipeline projects in the upper Midwest.

Trump signed two presidential memoranda intended to expedite the Keystone XL and Dakota Access oil pipelines, but he also signed three more longer- term and sweeping directives requiring American- made steel and changing the process of approving and regulating future pipeline and infrastructure projects.

“This is about streamlining the incredibly cumbersome, long, horrible, permitting process,” Trump said in an Oval Office signing ceremony that has already become a trademark of his short presidency.

In reversing the Obama administration policy to reject the Keystone pipeline, Trump emphasized that construction isn’t a done deal. “It’s something that’s subject to a renegotiation of terms by us,” he said. “We’ll see if we can get the pipeline built. A lot of jobs, 28,000 jobs.”

Keystone XL became a lightning rod for Obama’s energy policy, with the administration taking seven years to make a decision before ultimately killing it over environmental concerns. Environmental groups reacted quickly and vociferously to Trump’s moves Tuesday, promising legal action and White House protests.

“President Trump will live to regret his actions this morning,” said Michael Brune of the Sierra Club. He promised “a wall of resistance the likes of which he never imagined.”

The directives Trump signed Tuesday included four presidential memoranda and one executive order.

A memorandum expediting the Keystone XL Pipeline, a

proposed 1,179- mile cross- border pipeline from Alberta to Nebraska. In unusual language referring to a specific private company in a presidential directive, Trump invited pipeline company Transcanada “to promptly resubmit its application.” He also ordered the secretary of State to make a decision within 60 days, fasttracking existing procedural requirements.

A memorandum directing the secretary of the Army to “review and approve in an expedited manner” the Dakota Access Pipeline, a 1,172- mile pipeline from North Dakota to Illinois that has been the subject of heated protests by American Indian groups and environmentalists. Because the pipeline crosses waterways, it needs approval from the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Trump once owned stock in Energy Transfer Partners, the company building the pipeline, although his campaign said he sold off all individual stock holdings last August. Trump has not yet filed a financial- disclosure report to confirm the sale.

A memorandum requiring the secretary of Commerce to come up with a plan to require American- made steel for all new, expanded or retrofitted pipelines in the United States. The plan is due in six months.

“Going to put a lot of workers, a lot of steelworkers, back to work,” Trump declared.

A memorandum to all federal agencies to review manufacturing regulations. The secretary of Commerce is required to seek comment from the public for 60 days on how to streamline those rules, with a report to Trump containing proposals 60 days after that.

An executive order fasttracking approval for “high- priority infrastructure projects.” Under Trump’s order, any governor or Cabinet secretary can ask for a project to be designated as highpriority. If the chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality approves, the project will go to the front of the line for any agency required to review and approve the project.

“This is the expediting of environmental reviews and approvals for high- priority infrastructure projects,” Trump said. “We can’t be in an environmental process for 15 years if a bridge is falling down.

“If it’s a no, we’ll give them a quick no, and if it’s a yes, it’s like ‘ Let’s start building,’ ” he said. “The regulatory process in this country has become a tangled- up mess and very unfair to people.”

Keystone XL became a lightning rod for President Obama’s energy policy; the administration took seven years before it ultimately killed the project.

NICHOLAS KAMM, AFP/ GETTY IMAGES A familiar sight in the opening days: President Trump shows off one of the directives he signed Tuesday in the Oval Office.