There are many ways to deal with the environmental fallout from major infrastructure projects.

Republican President Richard Nixon agreed with congressional Democrats in 1970, when he signed the Environmental Review Act. The law required federal regulators to assess the environmental impact of projects such as pipelines and highways, and to diminish those impacts through permits and regulatory compliance reviews.

Republican President Donald Trump took a different approach. He substantially rolled back the regulatory framework supporting the Environmental Review Act, exempting innumerable enterprises and projects from environmental reviews and eliminating the public participation that the review process required.

Tuesday, the Biden administration announced that it will restore those regulatory protections in support of the Environmental Review Act, and in support of the global effort to mitigate dangerous atmospheric warming.

Federal agencies will consider direct, indirect and cumulative pollution impacts of projects under the regulatory jurisdiction, especially regarding climate change, and assess whether proposals would increase the disproportionate pollution burden already borne by poor and minority communities.

Critics complain that the rule restoration will slow important infrastructure projects. But haste doesn’t justify eliminating public input on intrusive development. And there is no inherent reason that environmental compliance should be considered an extraneous drag on development rather than a crucial, integral aspect of development.

The Trump administration’s approach was the anomaly, a vast departure from nearly 50 years of environmental regulation under Republican and Democratic administrations. The Biden administration’s restoration of environmental review restores that priority and serves the public interest.

— The Citizens’ Voice, Wilkes-Barre via TNS