As Flood Risks Rise, Trump’s Executive Order Jeopardizes Our Infrastructure and Communities
You may have missed the original intent of President Donald Trump’s news conference in New York last month— the one in which he made his unconscionable defense of the white supremacists who rallied in Charlottesville, Va. At that event, Trump also announced a new executive order that will roll back environmental reviews and a standard to reduce flood risks to infrastructure.
The president claimed that this move “streamlines” the process for federal agencies to review the environmental risks of major infrastructure projects, including highways, bridges and pipelines. In reality, Trump’s executive order weakens the National Environmental Policy Act and cancels a federal standard that protects new infrastructure from flooding and costly repairs. The order is a gift to developers and big corporations — the “private” half of the public-private partnerships that will implement the president’s infrastructure plan. Communities will suffer the consequences and taxpayers will pick up the tab. . .