In a move that could help speed wireless and wired broadband buildouts, President Donald Trump has signed an executive order "establishing a framework" for "expediting" environmental reviews and approvals for "high-priority infrastructure projects."
"[D]elays and other inefficiencies in the environmental review and permitting process are severely impeding critically important projects to rebuild and modernize our nation’s infrastructure, such as highways, bridges, tunnels, the electrical grid, ports, water systems, airports, railways and pipelines," the order stated.
Broadband was not among the projects the White House named in announcing Trump had signed the order, which, but tech companies have pushed him to make broadband infrastructure part of his trillion-dollar infrastructure plan. Environmental impact reviews are among the cited impediments to broadband buildouts.
The executive order had not been published on the White House Web site at press time
