Thursday, April 29th 2021
WASHINGTON (Sinclair Broadcast Group) — Fresh off his first address to Congress, President Joe Biden will spend the next week touring the country on his “Getting America Back on Track Tour,” convincing the American people of the immediate need to invest massively in the country’s infrastructure.
Yet, despite the urgency, there has been virtually no discussion of one of the most frustrating aspects of building infrastructure in the United States: the regulations that often turn a two-year project into a decade-long endeavor.
Industry advocates are warning that the potential benefits of Biden’s massive infrastructure investment plan could be offset by the lengthy, complex approval process required to build almost any significant project in the United States.
“If the two points of the president’s initiative are to build infrastructure and to stimulate economic activity, having those funds tied up in an endless, Kafkaesque regulatory process certainly doesn’t meet either objective,” Brian Turmail, vice president of public affairs and strategic initiatives for the Associated General Contractors of America. …
