President-elect Trump indicated on Tuesday that he’ll give expedited approvals to projects that invest at least $1 billion into the U.S. economy.
“Any person or company investing ONE BILLION DOLLARS, OR MORE, in the United States of America, will receive fully expedited approvals and permits, including, but in no way limited to, all Environmental approvals,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
“GET READY TO ROCK!!!” he added.
The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) — one of the nation’s bedrock environmental laws — requires federal agencies to conduct environmental reviews before taking actions such as approving energy production and approving infrastructure projects like pipelines and highways.
Many companies and corporate lobby groups have long complained about the length of such reviews, saying they can create lengthy and expensive delays.
William Buzbee, a law professor at Georgetown University, told The Hill in an email that the president can ask agencies to “act with alacrity for particular high priority actions.”
However, he said that these asks will “at most just cue up some prioritized actions, with the agencies still required to follow NEPA’s mandates and process.”
He said that the law does not provide a “statutory fast track for big investments in big projects.”
“In fact, the bigger the effects, the more searching and careful agencies must be if they hope to surmount later judicial review,” he wrote.
Trump’s post comes the same day that the Supreme Court heard arguments over whether to constrain NEPA’s scope to exclude certain indirect environmental impacts, though it’s not clear whether the post was related to the case.
Environmental activists, meanwhile, recoiled at Trump’s plan.
“Corporate polluters cannot bribe their way to endangering our communities and our clean air and water,” said Mahyar Sorour, director of beyond fossil fuels policy at the Sierra Club, in a statement.
“We will keep fighting to defend our bedrock environmental protections and ensure they apply to everyone, not just those who can’t afford Trump’s bribe,” Sorour added.
Updated at 4:04 pm ET.
