Trump to Roll Back Obama’s Flood Standards for Infrastructure

President Trump will sign an executive order on Tuesday to roll back standards that demanded the federal government account for climate change and sea-level rise when building new infrastructure, the White House confirmed.

The move is the latest effort by the Trump administration to unravel former President Barack Obama’s climate change agenda. It comes as Mr. Trump meets with top aides in New York to discuss plans for a sweeping infrastructure package, an effort that has taken a back seat in Congress to issues like health care.

Building trade groups and Republican lawmakers had criticized the Federal Flood Risk Management Standard, established by Mr. Obama in an executive order in 2015, as costly and overly burdensome.

But environmental activists, floodplain managers and some conservatives had urged the Trump administration to preserve the rule, arguing that it protected critical infrastructure and taxpayer dollars by ensuring new projects in areas prone to flooding were safeguarded.

“The Trump administration’s decision to overturn this is a disaster for taxpayers and the environment,” said Eli Lehrer, president of the R Street Institute, a free-market think tank in Washington. He described the Obama order as a common-sense measure to prevent taxpayer dollars from being sunk into projects threatened by flooding.

The rule gave federal agencies three options to flood-proof new infrastructure projects. They could use the best available climate change science; they could require that standard projects like roads and railways be built two feet above the national 100-year flood elevation standard and critical buildings like hospitals be built three feet higher; or they could require infrastructure be built to at least the 500-year floodplain. The order did not regulate private development.

In announcing the standards, the Obama administration cited a National Climate Assessment finding that more than $1 trillion worth of property and structures in the United States are at risk of inundation if sea levels rise two feet above current levels, something that scientists believe could happen by 2050.

A White House official said that Mr. Trump’s executive order would reinstate the prior flood management standard, issued by President Jimmy Carter in 1977, but that it would not prohibit state and local agencies from using more stringent standards if they chose.

Mr. Trump was expected to participate in a discussion on infrastructure on Tuesday and make an announcement at 3:45 p.m.

The administration’s 2018 budget request called for $200 billion in direct federal spending on infrastructure aimed at generating $1 trillion in private-sector investment to build and strengthen roads, bridges and other projects.

Representative Ralph Abraham of Louisiana, a Republican who sponsored legislation that would have blocked Mr. Obama’s flood standard, said he was thrilled by Mr. Trump’s decision. He acknowledged that Louisiana was inundated with catastrophic flooding last year, but called it an isolated event. The bigger threat, he said, is from costly regulations.

He estimated the standards would have increased the cost of a new home by 25 to 30 percent because most of the state would be put in a federal floodplain.

“We had more than our share of tragedy down here with the water, but we already have problems meeting requirements,” Mr. Abraham said. “The new plan would make it so costly for my Louisiana residents.”

The Obama administration had estimated the more stringent standards would increase construction costs between 0.25 and 1.25 percent, but save taxpayers money in the long run.

Representative Carlos Curbelo, a Republican of Florida who has called for addressing the threat posed by climate change, criticized Mr. Trump’s decision.

“When you’re on the front lines like South Florida, we know the importance of having more resilient building codes to protect our infrastructure, especially when taxpayer dollars are used,” he said in a statement. “This Executive Order is not fiscally conservative. It’s irresponsible and it will lead to taxpayer dollars being wasted on projects that may not be built to endure the flooding we are already seeing and know is only going to get worse.”