The President: Thank you Secretary Chao,
thank you everybody. This is very nice by the way.
I want to really thank you, you have been so amazing as the
leader of this department.
And the progress is being made so quickly.
But leaders and officials gathered here from across
the country, have all praised the work that the
secretary is doing to create a safe, modern and
reliable transportation system for the United
States, and for its great, great, great people.
I also want to thank Secretary Zinke for the
fantastic job he's doing at the Department of the
Interior to clear the way for new infrastructure and
economic development.
Both Secretary Chao and Zinke joined us at the
White House yesterday for a meeting with state and
local leaders to develop plans to replace America's
decaying infrastructure, and construct new roads,
rails, pipelines, tunnels, and bridges all
across our nation.
We are here today to focus on solving one of the
biggest obstacles to creating this new and
desperately needed infrastructure, and that
is the painfully slow, costly, and time-consuming
process of getting permits and approvals to build.
And I also knew that from the private sector.
It is a long, slow, unnecessarily
burdensome process.
My administration is committed to ending these
terrible delays once and for all.
The excruciating wait time for permitting has
inflicted enormous financial pain to cities
and states all throughout our nation, and has
blocked many important projects from ever getting
off the ground.
Many, many projects are long gone because they
couldn't get permits, and there was
no reason for it.
We've already taken historic steps to speed up
the approvals, including the approval of the
Keystone XL Pipeline, which was very
quickly approved.
They were sitting there for a long time saying,
"Well, that project is dead." Then I came into
office, and all of a sudden a miracle, and I
guarantee you: the consultants went over to
the heads of the company and told them what a
great job they did.
They asked for a lot of money, most likely.
But we got it approved, and we got
it approved fast.
I'm also very proud to say that the Dakota Access
Pipeline is now officially open for business.
It was dead 1 20 days ago, and now it officially just
opened for business.
(applause)
Very proud of that.
Hi Bill.
We're also excited to be joined by representatives
from our labor unions, including the North
American Building Trades Union, which I know well,
and the Laborers International Union of
North America.
You will play -- go-ahead, fellows.
Take a little credit.
Come on fellows.
(applause)
You will play a central role in rebuilding America.
Very important.
We're also joined as well by many distinguished
members of Congress who share our total passion
and desire to repair and restore America's
highways, railways, and waterways.
In the audience is [break] [beep] Bill Schuster of
the House Transportation
and Infrastructure Committee.
(applause)
Stand up Bill.
Thank you Bill.
Great job.
Who's working very closely with us, including on our
proposal to dramatically reduce airport delays by
reforming air-traffic control.
We have an obsolete system, and I have to say,
before Elaine got here they had spent close to
$7,000,000,000 on the system.
Boom, a waste, all wasted.
But we're going to have a great system, a great new
system.
The top-of-the-line.
It'll be the best in the world.
Right now we're at the lowest part of the pack.
They'll be the best in the world, for a lot less
money than they've been wasting for years.
For too long America has poured trillions and
trillions of dollars into rebuilding foreign
countries while allowing our own country, the
country that we love, and its infrastructure to fall
into a state of total disrepair.
We have structurally deficient bridges, clogged
roads, crumbling dams and locks.
Our rivers are in trouble.
Our railways are aging, and chronic traffic that
slows commerce and diminishes our citizens'
quality of life.
Other than that, we're doing very well.
(laughter)
Instead of rebuilding our country, Washington has
spent decades building a dense thicket of rules,
regulations and red tape.
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.
People don't believe that.
It took less than one year.
But today it can take 10 years and far more than
that just to get the approvals and permits
needed to build a major infrastructure project.
These charts beside me are actually a simplified
version of our highway permitting process.
It includes 16 different approvals involving 10
different federal agencies being governed by 26
different statutes.
As one example, and this happened just 30 minutes
ago, I was sitting with a great group of people
responsible for their state's economic
development and roadways.
All of you are in the room now, 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.
They spent $29,000,000 for an environmental report
weighing 70 pounds and costing $24,000 per page.
And 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.
Male Speaker: Page one.
(laughter)
President Trump: Okay.
(laughter) (applause)
Nobody's going to read it.
(laughter)
(inaudible) for the consultants who get a
fortune for this.
(laughter)
They fight us all the way.
(inaudible) Here's another one.
They don't even know what this is.
(inaudible)
(laughter)
So this cost -- I better make sure I move it.
I don't want to trip on the way out.
That would be a big story.
(laughter)
Especially to trip over that.
(laughter)
So they spent millions and millions of dollars.
When I said, "How long has this short roadway been
talked about," the gentleman said, "Well, if
you say 20 years, you're safe." I said, "Yeah,
don't say any more because, I have to be, you
know, I have to be exactly accurate with these people
back there."
(laughter)
If I was off by like two months it's a major
front-page story.
(laughter)
But these binders on the stage could be replaced by
just a few simple pages, and it would be just as
good.
It would actually be much better because these
binders also make you do unnecessary things that
cost billions and billions of dollars, and they
actually make it worse.
As another example, the 23, if you look at it in
Ohio, the Ohio River Bridge: $2.3 billion.
The project amassed a 150,000 page
administrative record: 150,000 pages is a
five-story tall building.
Think of it.
If you put the paper together, it's a
five-story building.
How can a country prosper under this kind of
nonsense?
And I know it.
I know it so well being in the private sector, but,
you know, in the private sector you move and you
wheel and you deal and you hope and you pray, and
maybe it goes a little faster, but it's a
horrible thing in the private sector also.
And we're talking about reducing that for the
private sector likewise.
Why should we continue to accept what is so clearly
unacceptable?
Often times for consultants that are
making a fortune because you can't do anything
without hiring them, paying them a tremendous
amount of money, having them write up this
nonsense.
You can't get approvals, and there, in the case of
New York, Albany, they go to Albany, the state
capital, or here they go to Washington for federal,
and they want to make it really tough because that
way you have to hire them.
It's a terrible thing.
It's a group of people probably nobody's ever
heard anybody talk about it because I know it
because I'm a business guy.
I understand it.
They work really hard to make it difficult, and
some are believers, but most aren't.
Most want to make a lot of money, so they make a
very, very simple roadway or whatever you want to be
building a very complicated subject, and
they make it very much more expensive, and they
make it worse.
It's not as good as it would have been.
I was not elected to continue a failed system.
I was elected to change it.
All of us in government service were elected to
solve the problems that have plagued our nation.
We are here to think big, to act boldly, and to rise
above the petty, partisan squabbling of Washington
D.C. We are here to take action.
It's time to start building our country with
American workers, and with American iron and aluminum
and steel.
It's time to put up soaring new infrastructure
that inspires pride in our people and our towns.
When I approved the Keystone Pipeline I said,
"Where was the pipe made?"
Unfortunately, they had purchased a lot of it, but
I put a little clause at the bottom: you want to
build a pipeline in this country?
Buy American steel, and let it be fabricated here.
(applause)
Very simple little clause written in hand, but it
does the trick.
It is time at last to put America first.
Americans deserve the best infrastructure anywhere in
the world.
They deserve roads and bridges that are safe to
travel and pipes that deliver clean water into
their homes, not like what happened in Flint,
Michigan.
They deserve lanes of commerce that get people
and products where they need to go on time.
Most of all, Americans deserve a system of
infrastructure that is looked upon, not with
pity.
The world, in many cases, is so far advanced that
they look at our infrastructure as being
sad.
We want them to look at us with envy, a system worthy
of our magnificent country.
No longer can we allow these rules and
regulations to tie down our economy, chain up our
prosperity, and sap our great American spirit.
That is why we will lift these restrictions and
unleash the full potential of the United States of
America.
To all of our state and local leaders, I
appreciate your being here today.
Thank you, thank you, thank you Bill.
I want you to know that help is finally, after
many, many decades, on its way.
We are giving control back to the cities and the
states.
You know best how to plan your communities, analyze
your projects, and protect your local environment.
We will get rid of the redundancy and duplication
that wastes your time and your money.
Our goal is to give you one point of contact to
deliver one decision, yes or no, for the entire
federal government, and to deliver that decision
quickly, whether it's a road, whether it's a
highway, a bridge, a dam.
To do this we are setting up a new council to help
project managers navigate the bureaucratic maze.
This council will also improve transparency by
creating a new online dashboard, allowing
everyone to easily track major projects through
every stage of the approval process.
This council will make sure that every federal
agency that is consistently delaying
projects by missing deadlines will face tough,
new penalties.
I know it won't happen with these two.
We don't have to worry about them.
We will hold the bureaucracy accountable.
We're also creating a new office in the council of
environmental quality to root out inefficiency,
clarify lines of authority, and streamline
federal and state local procedures so that
communities can modernize their aging infrastructure
without fear of outdated federal rules getting in
their way.
This massive permit reform, and that's what it
is.
It's a permit reform.
It doesn't sound glamorous.
They won't write stories about it.
They won't even talk about it, but it's so important.
But it's only the first step in renewing America's
roads, rails, runways, and rivers.
As I discussed in Ohio recently, my new vision
for American infrastructure will
generate $1,000,000,000 in infrastructure investment,
which we desperately need.
We've spent, as of a few months ago, $6,000,000,000
in the Middle East.
Think of it: $6,000,000,000 in the
Middle East, and it's worse than it was 15 years
ago by a factor of 10.
And yet, if you want to build a little road in one
of your communities in Pennsylvania or Ohio or in
Iowa or in North Carolina or in Florida, you can't
get the money.
State and local leaders will have more power to
decide which projects get built, when they start,
and how they are funded.
And investors will have a much more predictable
environment that encourages them to invest
billions of dollars in capital that is currently
stuck on the sidelines.
Together we will build projects to inspire our
youth, employ our workers, and create true prosperity
for our people.
We will pour new concrete, lay new brick, and watch
new sparks light our factories, as we forge
metal from the furnaces of our Rust Belt and our
beloved Heartland, which has been forgotten.
It's not forgotten anymore.
We will put new American steel into the spine of
our country.
American workers will construct gleaming new
lanes of commerce across our landscape.
They will build these monuments from coast to
coast and from city to city, and with these new
roads, bridges, airports, and seaports we will
embark on a wonderful new journey into a bright and
glorious future.
We will build again.
We will grow again.
We will thrive again, and we will make America great
again.
Thank you.
God bless you.
(applause)
I appreciate it.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.