ELLEN KNICKMEYER
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — In a dramatic rollback of environmental oversight, President Donald Trump took action Thursday to clear the way and speed up development of a wide range of commercial projects by cutting back federal review of their impact on the environment.
"The United States can't compete and prosper if a bureaucratic system holds us back from building what we need," Trump said at the White House, surrounded by Cabinet secretaries, industry leaders and workers in hard hats.
Trump's proposal calls for greatly narrowing the scope of the half-century-old National Environmental Policy Ac t, which was signed by President Richard Nixon in 1970.
That law changed environmental oversight in the country by requiring federal agencies to consider whether a
