WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump on Friday vowed new efforts to speed approvals for highways and other projects as part of his proposal for a $1 trillion boost to fix aging infrastructure.
At the Transportation Department, Trump said his goal is to solve “one of the biggest obstacles to creating this new and desperately-needed infrastructure—and that is the painfully slow, costly and time-consuming process for getting permits and approvals to build.”
Trump said the White House is setting up a new council to help project managers navigate bureaucratic hurdles. “This Council will also improve transparency by creating a new online dashboard allowing everyone to easily track major projects through every stage of the approval process,” Trump said.
He said the council will make sure that any federal agency that “consistently delays projects by missing deadlines will face tough, new penalties. We will hold the bureaucracy accountable.”
The White House is also creating a new office in the Council of Environmental Quality “to root out inefficiency, clarify lines of authority, and streamline federal, state and local procedures so that communities can modernize their aging infrastructure without fear of outdated federal rules getting in the way.”
