Infrastructure policy of Donald Trump

[5] On January 31, 2019, Trump issued an executive order encouraging the purchase of U.S.-made construction materials for public infrastructure projects, especially those that need funding from the federal government.

If the proposed revisions survived their legal challenges, environmental activists would no longer be able to halt pipeline construction by litigation, a key tool they have been using since the middle of the Obama administration.

[13] In June 2020, the President signed an executive order providing federal agencies with the emergency power to fast-track infrastructure projects, including energy and highway construction, by overriding environmental regulations.

[17] By September 2019, as signs of a possible recession appear over the horizon, Donald Trump could use, among other things, infrastructure spending to tackle the problem like his predecessors did, albeit at the cost of more public debt as tax hikes are generally unpopular.

Moreover, his vision made little headway because despite bipartisan agreement that American infrastructure is in a state of poor repair and needs upgrading, members of Congress have not been able to reach a consensus on how to pay for it.

[23] In addition, the Highway Trust Fund is losing its effectiveness thanks to improving energy efficiency and the arrival of alternative-fuel vehicles whose owners do not pay the gas tax.

The Democrats' infrastructure plan includes funds for passenger rail transportation – with money for Amtrak's stations and services –, ports and harbors, climate-change resiliency, greenhouse gas emissions reduction, and expanding access to broadband Internet.

Earlier in the year, Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin discussed a possible infrastructure plans with House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard E. Neal, but their talks were derailed as the pandemic continued to spread across the United States.

[30] The Act also provides financial assistance to the U.S. Marine Corps base Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, which sustained $3 billion worth of damages by Hurricane Florence.

Missouri Governor Mike Parson said federal money would fund the repairs and replacements of electrical power equipment, roads, bridges, and other public works.

"A successful attack on our bulk-power system would present significant risks to our economy, human health and safety, and would render the United States less capable of acting in defense of itself and its allies," he wrote.

[34] In addition, it tasks the Secretary of Energy, Dan Brouillette at the time of its issuing, with creating a list of safe vendors, identifying any vulnerable components of the grid and replacing them.

[36] At an event in Salt Lake City, Utah, Energy Secretary Rick Perry announced that rather than imposing "draconian" regulations on the fossil fuel industry, the Trump administration was committed to making them cleaner.

However, according to the International Energy Agency, the U.S. electricity sector needed to reduce its emissions by 74% below 2005 levels over the same period in order to prevent the global average temperature from rising by more than 2 °C.

While infrastructure there was limited, residents received their paychecks from the oil industry drilling in Prudhoe Bay, which also paid for a full-time fire department and a basketball gym.

[52] In November 2017, the Northern Pass transmission line project, proposed by utilities company Eversource to carry hydroelectricity from Quebec to New England, received a presidential permit.

[53] However, in July 2019, the New Hampshire Supreme Court unanimously upheld the state's Site Evaluation Committee rejection, citing concerns over the land use, environmental and economic impacts of the 192-mile (307-km) transmission line.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke wrote in an op-ed for the Boston Globe that he wanted to provide "an equal opportunity for all sources of responsible energy development, from fossil fuels to the full range of renewables."

[63] In February 2020, President Trump proposed an executive order mandating "classical" architecture—including Gothic, Romanesque, Spanish, Mediterranean and other traditional styles—for all federal public buildings in the District of Columbia.

Trump, the National Civic Art Society, a driving force behind the proposed executive order, and Utah Senator Mike Lee hold a dim view of more modern architectural styles, such as Brutalism, which proved popular during the 1950s but has largely fallen out of favor.

[71] After an 11-month investigation, the U.S. House Intelligence Committee found in 2012 that Huawei and ZTE, another Chinese firm, were threats to national security and recommended that U.S. companies refrain from doing business with them.

[75] In June 2020, the Trump administration formally announced its opposition to the construction of a new undersea Internet cable connecting Hong Kong with the United States, citing national security concerns.

U.S. government officials worried that such a connection would allow Chinese intelligence direct access to U.S. data, boosting their capabilities at a time when China is making no secret of its global ambitions.

Adam Hickey, a senior official from the Department of Justice on telecommunications, told Politico, "It has the potential to establish Hong Kong as the center of gravity for U.S. data connectivity in Asia, offering unprecedented opportunities for collection by the Chinese intelligence services."

[76][77] In late March 2020, President Trump signed into law a stimulus package worth around two trillion dollars, the biggest in American history, in order to alleviate the economic downturn due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States.

Besides cash infusion for front-line hospitals, loans for struggling industries, aid for farmers, enhanced unemployment benefits, relief for married couples with young children, and tax cuts for retailers, it included $200 million for telemedicine.

[80] Works to deepen it to 52 feet (15.8 m) has been ongoing since 2011 but had never been on a federal budget proposed by the President till 2018, when a new cost-benefit analysis conducted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers made it suitable for consideration.

[84] Shortly after taking office in 2017, Donald Trump unveiled an infrastructure plan worth a trillion dollars that includes a $2.4 (~$2.93 billion in 2023)-billion cut to federal transportation programs.

This plan would eliminate subsidies for long-distance trains and commercial flights to rural communities with limited transportation options, including those that helped Trump win the presidency.

[99] However, in July 2019, the Trump administration authorized the State of California to assume responsibility for ensuring the project is in compliance with federal environmental protection regulations, thereby lifting a major hurdle.