No, it doesnt take 10 years to get approval to build 'a simple road

There he goes again.

President Donald Trump claimed – erroneously – in his State of the Union address that it takes 10 years to build “a simple road.” That’s a canard in his brazen effort to short-circuit environmental reviews in his infrastructure plan, to be unveiled any day now.

With that initial claim so far from the truth, lawmakers should toss that entire idea from the nearest bridge.

The mythical 10-year figure appears to come from a report called “Two Years Not Ten Years” by the anti-regulatory group Common Good. Despite putting the 10 years claim in his 2015 report’s title, it doesn’t supply any data that actually shows project reviews can take a decade, instead claiming “ample anecdotal evidence” to support his claim. But — spoiler — there is no such evidence, anecdotal or otherwise, as the Congressional Research Service confirmed.

After all, 96 percent of federal highway projects have only minimal or no environmental review before they proceed; of those complex projects requiring the full analysis, the average time for a permit is 4.7 years, according to the White House’s own infrastructure adviser.

Even that’s overblown. The Trump administration’s own data shows that reviews are getting done much more quickly. According to Department of Transportation data, in the 13 years through 2011, it took on average 5.6 years to complete a major highway project review. Since 2012, it has averaged 3.6 years.

Repeated investigations by government watchdogs show that funding, not environmental reviews, is the cause of delay. A witness from the Congressional Research Service told a congressional panel that a study of 40 projects showed that 39 were slowed by a lack of federal funding.

http://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/373245-no-it-doesnt-take-10-years-to-get-approval-to-build-a-simple-road