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Trump's wall (450 mi) is a more impressive achievement than it may appear at first glance... /1
The federal government has lost the ability to expeditiously complete major infrastructure projects... this is an issue Trump admin inherited and worked to mitigate including through streamlining of implementing regulations of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969... /2
By way of illustration, let's travel back more then a decade to the 2008 economic crisis. I am drawing here from an account from Philip K. Howard's book "The Rule of Nobody". /3
https://philipkhoward.com/book/the-rule-of-nobody/
https://philipkhoward.com/book/the-rule-of-nobody/
Back in 2008 the Port Authority of NY/NJ was faced with a conundrum regarding the Bayonne Bridge, connecting Newark to New York Harbor... /4
The bridge's roadway hung just 151 feet over the water... this had previously been sufficient, but with the widening of the Panama Canal, a new generation of larger container ships required a higher clearance (215 feet)... /5
If this problem was not solved, the port of Newark would be unable to accommodate... Port Authority proposed either building a new bridge or digging a tunnel... both would require the destruction of the existing bridge and were estimated to come with a $4 billion price tag... /6
The project manager at Port Authority asked the engineers to go back to drawing board and devise a more economical solution... The engineers hit upon a more cost-effective alternative. /7
They could simply build a new roadway higher *within* the existing arch of the Bayonne Bridge... moreover the existing roadway could stay open during construction, by raising one half at a time. The cost of the project would be 1/4th of building a new bridge or tunnel... /8
This was the proposal the Port Authority issued in 2009. Four years later they still had not received approval to start the project. How come? /9
Bear in mind this was right in the midst of Obama regime's stimulus program which was originally envisaged as a kind of updated New Deal-style program... if ever there was a time for expediting government construction projects this would have been it... /10
As Howard writes: "Building anything important in America requires layers of approvals from multiple levels of government—in this project, forty-seven permits from nineteen different governmental entities..." /11
"Environmental review has evolved into an academic exercise, like a game of who can find the most complications. Balkanization of authority among different agencies and levels of government creates a dynamic of buck-passing." /12
Raising the Bayonne Bridge roadway should have been a no-brainer... after all they were not building a new structure... the foundations would remain the same as would the right-of-way... /13
One might have thought it could not possibly provoke the environmental concerns that building a new bridge or tunnel would have... /14
Indeed, the Port Authority thought so and sought an abbreviated environmental assessment. Under the existing environmental statute, this reduced assessment could be conducted by a designated *lead agency*... /15
...at the end which they can issue a finding of no signficant impact (FONSI) or alternatively determine a full environmental impact statement (EIS) is needed... /16
The problem was the law does not stipulate which government entity is supposed to be the lead agency nor does it provide for any responsible official for making such a selection... /17
The Port Authority sent out request letters to multiple government entities... which successively shirked responsibility and turned down the request to become the project's lead agency, until finally the Coast Guard agreed after almost a year's delay... /18
Then the environmental assessment needed to be conducted... at the end of which the Coast Guard as lead agency could either issue a FONSI or require an *additional* full environmental impact statement which would further delay the project... /19
As it turned out, the Port Authority was required to perform an historical survey of every building within a 2-mile radius of the bridge... this entailed proceeding through the bureaucratic process of hiring an expert who then needed to complete the historic building survey. /20
In addition to this, the law required that Native American tribes be afforded the chance to participate in the environmental review committees and that they be given the authority to request excavations of the soil to search for tribal remains... /21
Simply in order to raise the roadway of an existing bridge, the Port Authority had to invite the participation of the Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma and the Sand Hills Nation of Nebraska... /22
As the New York Times reported: "After four years of work, the environmental assessment was issued in May and took into consideration comments from 307 organizations or individuals." /23
"The report invoked 207 acronyms, including M.B.T.A. (Migratory Bird Treaty Act) and N.L.R. (No Longer Regulated). Fifty-five federal, state and local agencies were consulted and 47 permits were required from 19 of them." /24
"Fifty Indian tribes from as far away as Oklahoma were invited to weigh in on whether the project impinged on native ground that touches the steel-arch bridge’s foundation." /25 https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/03/nyregion/long-review-of-bayonne-bridge-project-is-assailed.html
In addition to these roadblocks, environmental groups opposed the raising of the roadway... not because of any direct environmental impact... but because meeting the new clearance level for Panamax ship would increase activity at Newark's port, increasing truck traffic... /26
Eventually the Bayonne Bridge project was successfully completed... the final stretch of roadway was raised in 2019... by then a real estate mogul and former reality TV host was president.... /27
As it happens, Trump administration sought to reduce the environmental review process that had emerged under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)... /28 https://news.yahoo.com/trump-announces-sweeping-changes-key-environmental-law-163910082.html
For example, the federal Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) had originally recommended that the completion of Environmental Impact Statements should not take longer than one year... but today the average is closer to *five years*... Trump sought to correct this... /29
But despite simply revising the implementing rules, which is wholly under the purview of the executive branch and its agencies, Trump's effort has been tied up in litigation... Biden regime already indicating they will reverse these reforms... /30 https://www.chamberlitigation.com/cases/wild-virginia-v-council-environmental-quality
Consider all this when appraising Trump's wall construction. /31
