President Trump held up several massive binders and dropped them to the floor in a Friday speech to demonstrate the “slow, costly and time-consuming” permitting rules that have prevented the U.S. from moving more quickly to build infrastructure projects around the country.
Speaking at the Department of Transportation on Friday, Trump said he had just met with people responsible for their states’ economic development and roadways, including a man who showed the president a massive binder containing a costly environmental report that held up road construction.
“And one gentleman from Maryland was talking about an 18-mile road and he brought with him some of the approvals that they’ve gotten and paid for,” Trump said. “They spent $29 million for an environmental report weighing 70 pounds and costing $24,000 per page.”
“I said, ‘do me a favor, I’m going to make a speech in a little while, do you mind if I take that and show it?’ So I’m going to show it. Nobody’s going to read it,” he said.
The president then walked away from the podium and flipped through the pages of the binder, then let each one hit the ground with a thud.
With Trump’s speech, the White House’s so-called “infrastructure week” came to an end Friday. The effort was meant to highlight the need to speed up the permitting process before roads, bridges, ports and tracks across the country can be built.
“It took only four years to build the Golden Gate Bridge and five years to build the Hoover Dam and less than one year to build the Empire State building…but today it can take 10 years just to get the approvals and permits needed to build a major infrastructure project,” Trump said.
On Monday, the White House kicked off a weeklong focus on infrastructure, announcing a series of events and speeches where the president would draw attention to the issue his advisers say they hope can be tackled this year.
“We have structurally deficient bridges, clogged roads, crumbling dams and rocks, our rivers are in trouble, our railways are aging and chronic traffic that slows commerce and diminishes our citizens quality of life,” Trump said Friday. “Other than that, we are doing very well.”
