Trump teases speedy environmental permitting for $1bn investments in US

The president-elect’s proposal came with scant details, but environmental groups likened it to a corporate ‘bribe’.

President-elect Donald Trump has teased the prospect of faster environmental approvals for companies and individuals investing at least $1bn in the United States.

As part of a flurry of social media posts on Tuesday, Trump indicated he planned to streamline the permitting process, as part of his plan to boost the US economy.

“Any person or company investing ONE BILLION DOLLARS, OR MORE, in the United States of America, will receive fully expedited approvals and permits, including, but in no way limited to, all Environmental approvals,” Trump wrote on his platform, Truth Social. “GET READY TO ROCK!!!”

But the post instantly sparked a backlash among advocacy groups, which saw the proposal as a means of undermining the country’s environmental protections.

The Sierra Club, one of the most prominent environmental groups in the US, even compared Trump’s plan to a “bribe”.

“Donald Trump’s plan to sell out the highest bidder confirms what we’ve long known about him,” said Mahyar Sorour, director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Fossil Fuels Policy.

“He’s happy to sacrifice the wellbeing of American communities for the benefit of his Big Oil campaign donors.”

Trump has yet to reveal how he might implement this scheme within existing government frameworks. Longstanding laws like the 1970 National Environmental Policy Act require permitting and environmental studies for any major project that receives federal funding.

But Trump has previously burnished a reputation for cutting back environmental policy.

During his first term as president, from 2017 to 2021, Trump took aim at what he called “unnecessary and inappropriate” environmental regulations, accusing them of overburdening US industries.

A New York Times analysis tallied that, by the end of his four-year term, Trump achieved the full rollback of approximately 112 environmental rules, with others weakened or partially dismantled.

Among the laws he targeted were standards for greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution and offshore drilling.

On the campaign trail this year, Trump once again pledged to scale back restrictions on oil and gas production, including through the repeal of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, one of the most substantive climate change laws in US history.

“We will slash the red tape. We will get the job done,” Trump said in August at a campaign stop in Potterville, Michigan. One of his many campaign slogans was “Drill, baby, drill”.

Also as part of his “America First” platform, Trump promised the return of American manufacturing jobs from overseas, largely through the implementation of protectionist trade policies like tariffs. But his plan also includes incentives for companies that invest in the US.

“Not only will we stop our businesses from leaving for foreign lands, but under my leadership, we’re going to take other countries’ jobs,” Trump told a rally in Savannah, Georgia, in September.

“We’re going to take their factories. We had it really rocking four years ago. We’re going to bring thousands and thousands of businesses and trillions in wealth back to the good ole USA.”