Speaking at the U.S. Department of Transportation, President Donald Trump has iterated his eagerness to swiftly implement a $1 trillion infrastructure plan.
“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,” he said at the department last week. Trump wants the speed up the approval process of improving highways are other U.S. infrastructure.
According to the World Economic Forum’s Competitiveness Report for 2015-2016, the U.S. ranks 11th globally for infrastructure, yet is third overall for economic competitiveness. The report also stated that the of “most problematic factors for doing business” in the U.S., inadequate supply of infrastructure was the source of 5.2 percent of the problems.
Over the course of a decade, The White House proposes spending $200 billion of federal money as part of the trillion-dollar public-private partnership.
The President also said how the White House is pressing on with “massive permit reform,” forming a new council that will supposedly streamline and eliminate red tape when dealing with infrastructure projects. “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, as reported by Reuters. He continued, adding that any federal agency that “consistently delays projects by missing deadlines will face tough, new penalties. We will hold the bureaucracy accountable.”
Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao is also reaching out the public for comment and advice for other changes the Trump administration can make to reduce delays in infrastructure approval.
On that note, Trump, according to Reuters, cited the infrastructure of old and reminded everyone of his taste for Keynesian-style economics. It took “four years to build the Golden Gate Bridge and five years to build the Hoover Dam—but today it can take 10 years just to get the approvals and permits needed to build a major infrastructure project,” he lambasted. The President, meanwhile, displayed his distaste for the “16 different approvals involving ten different federal agencies being governed by 26 different statutes,” needed when applying for infrastructure permits.
