Obama Administration Planning for More Green Tape
Nicolas Loris /
In a plan that was intended to be quick and temporary, Congress passed a $787 billion stimulus plan, which included large sums of money to fund infrastructure projects. Never mind the fact that the stimulus bill was a bad idea, the amount of environmental regulatory tape standing in the way will prevent it from ever getting off the ground. Normally it takes a federal construction project an average of 4.4 years to complete a National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) review. Throw in the Clean Water Act’s section 404 requirements (where relevant), and before a single shovel can hit the earth it takes 5.6 years for the average federal project to jump through all the normal environmental hoops. It could get worse in the very near future. E&E (password protected) reports:
“The Obama administration may soon issue an executive order adding climate change to the list of factors federal agencies must take into account when evaluating projects and policies.
Environmentalists have pushed for the expansion of the 40-year-old National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which currently requires agencies to consider environmental factors such as land use, biodiversity and air quality.”