Why President Trump Is Going It Alone on Infrastructure

With legislative action in doubt, the administration is trying to cut down on projects’ bureaucratic delays—the likes of which the president decried as “a massive self-inflicted wound” on the country.

If recent history is a guide, President Trump won’t be getting much infrastructure money from Congress anytime soon. Republicans stiffed former President Barack Obama’s repeated requests to splurge on roads and bridges, and they just got done slashing federal revenues through tax cuts and boosting spending on the military and domestic agencies—including a modest bump for infrastructure.

But the developer-turned-president believes he can jump-start the rebuilding process even before Congress acts: The Trump administration is changing the way the federal government approves infrastructure projects in a bid to speed up decision-making and, ultimately, cut down the time it takes to finish them.

The goal is to shave years off the time it takes project sponsors to obtain the many federal sign-offs required for major endeavors—down to an average of two years, Trump has said. The process has stretched in some cases to a decade or more, as federally funded efforts to build new highways, pipelines, bridges, dams, and electrical power plants get bogged down in the approvals process. By streamlining the bureaucracy, the administration argues it can lure more investment from the private sector, as well as from state and local governments. That money would bridge the gap between the $200 billion Trump has proposed in new federal dollars and the $1.5 trillion in infrastructure spending that he wants his plan to spur overall.

Trump’s moves have raised fears among environmentalists that the administration is eyeing an end run around longstanding regulations in the National Environmental Policy Act designed to ensure that the construction of new infrastructure doesn’t threaten wildlife habitats or pollute sources of drinking water, among other aims. And they view the harping about permitting delays as a diversion from the real obstacle to infrastructure improvements: a lack of money. But the effort has drawn praise from some Trump skeptics who say the changes are a needed bureaucratic push that could save not only time, but also a significant amount of money in costs.

It’s more than sheer willpower, however.

Last August, Trump signed an executive order establishing what administration officials call the “One Federal Decision” policy, which designates a single department or agency as the lead decision-maker for the federal permitting process. If the project is a new bridge, for example, the Department of Transportation would take the lead. A new pipeline or water project would go through the Army Corps of Engineers.

The department in charge is responsible for creating a timetable for approvals across the government and ensuring that key milestones are met. It’s an important change, administration officials and infrastructure advocates said, because the permitting process comprises 29 different federal statutes over 15 departments and agencies.

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