US President Donald Trump dealt a serious blow to environmental laws by overhauling the law designed to protect the environment before issuing permits for infrastructural projects. The law has been diluted to further the economic growth of the country, Al Jazeera reported.

“Today’s action is part of my administration’s fierce commitment to slashing the web of needless bureaucracy that is holding back our citizens,” said Trump while addressing people in Atlanta.

Trump revealed his plan to shorten the time span of environmental reviews before permitting developers to build highways, pipelines, or oil wells.

Taking a dig at his competitor Joe Biden, Trump said: “Under the last administration, a mere 7 per cent of review for federal highways were processed within two years,” adding that under his administration’s overhaul, “two years won’t be the exception, it’ll be the rule.”

Trump, who is a free-market conservative, believes that environmental regulations delay many ambitious infrastructure projects, which further delays the economic growth of the country.

Last year in November, Trump announced the US’ withdrawal from the deal agreed to at the UN climate change conference in Paris in 2015, the Guardian reported.

Biden’s vision is poles apart from Trump’s. Biden promised to infuse $2 trillion over four years of his term to promote a clean energy economy. He also pledged to redress environmental injustices.

“We’re going to reverse Trump’s rollbacks of 100 public health and environmental rules and then forge a path to greater ambition,” said Biden on Tuesday.

Mocking his competitor’s pledge, Trump said on Wednesday: “Biden wants to massively regulate the energy economy, rejoin the Paris Climate accord, which would kill our energy totally and you’d have to close 25 per cent of your businesses and kill oil and gas development.”

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