The Army Corps of Engineers has identified over 600 energy and other infrastructure projects that could be fast-tracked under President Donald Trump's National Energy Emergency declaration, according to a Reuters review of data posted on the Army Corps website.
Key takeaways:
- The Army Corps has in the past issued emergency designations to skip over environmental reviews in cases in which the project addressed threats to human life. Watchdog groups say most of the projects marked as emergencies on the list do not meet the Army Corps' definition of an emergency.
- Courts may be unwilling to weigh in on the president's criteria for what constitutes a national energy emergency, but will more likely weigh how individual projects adhere to the language of the executive order.
- There are at least five dozen solar energy projects on the list. Solar and wind energy were excluded from the definition of energy in Trump's energy emergency order, yet they were included.
- West Virginia has the largest number of projects on the list at 141. There are 60 in Pennsylvania, 57 in Texas, 42 in Florida, 41 in Ohio.
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