“The memo reveals an infrastructure plan that is essentially a giveaway to corporations at the expense of the American people and our environment.”

By Jake Johnson, staff writer for CommonDreams. Published 1-27-2018

“The administration’s legislative outline for infrastructure sacrifices clean air, water, the expertise of career agency staff, and bedrock environmental laws,” concluded Theresa Pierno, president of the National Parks Conservation Association. (Photo: Mark Dixon/Flickr/cc)

Green groups reacted with alarm on Friday to a leaked Trump administration infrastructure draft that proposes a drastic rollback of environmental regulations in an attempt to expedite the construction of water-threatening oil pipelines, roads, bridges—and, of course, “the wall.”

The draft also includes a provision that would “expand the government’s ability to have private firms pay for the federal environmental reviews of their own projects” while also restricting the ability of federal agencies to “weigh in or block a project from going forward,” the Washington Post, which first obtained the leaked proposal, reports. Continue reading →