Philip K. Howard is chair of the nonpartisan reform coalition Common Good, and an advocate of streamlining the infrastructure permitting process. In the following guest editorial, Howard reviews the Trump administration’s recently released infrastructure plan and the streamlining process.

The infrastructure plan issued by the White House launches an essential public discussion of how to rebuild America’s crumbling infrastructure in a timely fashion. Streamlining permitting is vital, and the White House rightly features it prominently in the plan.

The challenge, as it relates to streamlining, is to align the permitting process with the need to modernize America’s decrepit infrastructure. The two can be far better balanced than is now the case, as greener countries such as Germany and Canada have proven. Streamlining infrastructure permitting should benefit the environment by removing bottlenecks that produce congestion and pollution, and accelerating rep