The White House is finalizing a plan to limit the National Environmental Policy Act

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration has finalized a plan to roll back regulations enforcing a landmark environmental law that the White House says unnecessarily delay federal approvals for energy and infrastructure projects.

Read more: Trump’s order halts offshore wind projects for at least 90 days

Wednesday’s action by the White House Council on Environmental Quality eliminates regulations under the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires federal agencies to study a project’s potential environmental impacts before approving it.

The directive “will cut layers of needless bureaucratic burden and restore common sense to the environmental review and permitting process,” Catherine Scarlett, who leads the council, said in a statement.

She added that under Trump, “NEPA’s reign of regulatory terror is over.”

The measure comes as Congress is considering legislation aimed at speeding up permitted reviews of new energy and infrastructure projects and limiting judicial review under the law.

Republicans and many Democrats believe the 56-year-old law has become mired in red tape that routinely delays major projects for years. The law requires detailed analysis of such projects and allows for public comment before issuing approvals.

The bill approved by the Republican-controlled House would put legal limits on environmental reviews, expand the scope of procedures that do not require review and set clear deadlines. It would also limit who can raise legal challenges and what legal remedies courts can impose.

Democrats agree that the permitting process has become unwieldy, but they say the House bill undermines public input and participation while overly restricting judicial review.

Efforts to approve permit changes faltered last month after the administration suspended five major offshore wind projects on the East Coast over unspecified national security concerns.

Democratic Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico said the administration’s “reckless and vindictive assault on wind energy” has destroyed the trust needed to enact comprehensive, bipartisan reform of the law.