Executive Order 13766: Expediting Environmental Reviews

What this Executive Order says

This Executive Order (EO), No. 13766, is entitled "Expediting Environmental Reviews and Approvals for High Priority Infrastructure Projects" and was issued January 24th, 2017.  It has 4 sections.

Section 1

This section describes the purpose of this EO, in that there are delays to projects due to agency processes and procedures, one of the prime culprits that has been complained about is the EPA.

Section 2

This section indicates that at the request of State Governor, or the head of an executive agency or at their own initiative, the Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality gets to decide what projects are considered "high priority".

Section 3

This section explains who is responsible for keeping review deadlines and who is responsible for following up on these deadlines.

Section 4

This section has the usual legal fine print required to ensure the constitutionality of the EO.

My Commentary

So, someone on some TV program (I think) once had provided a rationale that predictability from the environmental review process would be a good thing and that in business, there are sometimes doubts as to whether or not to make an investment because it cannot be predicted whether (or when) something will get approval to start construction.  We do need industry and I think it is reasonable that for any government service there is predictability of outcomes.  The fear in looking at this EO is that there will be pressure to perform less rigorous or complete of a review in order to meet an arbitrary deadline.
The goals stated in this EO were furthered with more detailed procedural prescriptions in EO 13807 which was issued on August 15th, 2017.