Trump seeks to revive Dakota Access, Keystone XL oil pipelines
Steven Mufson and Juliet Eilperin
President Trump signed executive orders Tuesday to revive the controversial Dakota Access and Keystone XL oil pipelines, another step in his effort to dismantle former president Barack Obama’s environmental legacy.
He also signed an executive order to expedite environmental reviews of other infrastructure projects, lamenting the existing “incredibly cumbersome, long, horrible permitting process.”
“The regulatory process in this country has become a tangled-up mess,” he said.
It remained unclear how Trump’s order would expedite those environmental reviews. Many are statutory and the legislation that created them cannot be swept aside by an executive order. Indeed, Trump’s order on the Dakota Access pipeline left some ambiguity. The executive order directs the Army Corps of Engineers to “review and approve in an expedited manner, to the extent permitted by law.”
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