Trump Criticizes Environmental Regulations -- Update
January 24 2017 - 11:57AM
Dow Jones News
By Peter Nicholas
President Donald Trump said businesses have to wait too long to
obtain permits and vowed to create a friendlier climate for
companies that want to invest in the U.S., stepping up a push to
curb the flow of jobs overseas.
In a meeting at the White House Tuesday with auto industry
executives, Mr. Trump said he would streamline and shorten the
process by which applicants win approval to do business in the
U.S.
He said environmental regulations, in particularly, have become
unnecessarily burdensome.
"We're going to make the process much more simple for the oil
companies and everybody else that wants to do business in the
United States," Mr. Trump said at the start of a meeting with
executives from General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co. and Fiat
Chrysler Automobiles NV.
"I have friends who want to build in the United States," he
said. "They go many years, many years and they can't get the
environmental permits over something that nobody ever heard of
before. It's absolutely crazy."
Environmental permitting requirements, he said, are "out of
control." Under his administration, Mr. Trump continued, "we're
going to make a very short process and we're going to either give
you your permits or not going to give you your permits, but you're
going to know very quickly.
"And generally speaking, we're going to give you your
permits."
In his first days in office, Mr. Trump is focusing on job
creation and the business climate, trying to make good on promises
he put forward during the campaign.
On Monday, he met with a dozen chief executives of large U.S.
companies.
In his meeting Tuesday, he pulled out the chair next to him so
that Mary Barra, chief executive of General Motors, could sit down.
He went around the Roosevelt Room and asked everyone to introduce
themselves, beginning with himself. "I'm Donald Trump," he
said.
Mr. Trump also suggested that businesses would pay a price
should they not comply with his "America First" credo. He has said,
for example, that companies would pay a border tax should they try
to move overseas and sell products to the U.S.
"You're going to find us to be from very inhospitable to
extremely hospitable," Mr. Trump said.
Ford CEO Mark Fields praised Mr. Trump's action Monday formally
pulling out of a 12-nation Pacific trade deal that former President
Barack Obama had made a priority. Mr. Fields said the trade deal
did nothing to "meaningfully" address what he called a substantial
trade barrier: currency manipulation.
"We appreciate the president's courage to walk away from a bad
trade deal," Mr. Fields said.
Ms. Barra, in a brief statement, said, "There's a huge
opportunity to work together as an industry with government" in a
joint effort to improve the environment, safety and the
economy.
Write to Peter Nicholas at peter.nicholas@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 24, 2017 11:42 ET (16:42 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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