Trump scrapped Obama flood protection standards days before Hurricane Harvey

US President Donald Trump signed an executive order scrapping Obama-era flood protections only days before Hurricane Harvey hit Texas, The Independent reports.

The storm has led to massive flooding in the region, which has experienced 76.2 cm (30 inches) of rain in less than two days.

Trump’s order, which removed the Federal Flood Risk Management Standard, aimed to speed up approvals for infrastructure projects.

The standard, signed by former president Barack Obama in 2015, prevented the construction of roads, bridges and other infrastructure in areas at risk of flooding and required any such projects to legally account for the impact of climate change.

The regulations had yet to come into effect when they were dismantled by the executive order in August.

“We're going to get infrastructure built quickly, inexpensively, relatively speaking, and the permitting process will go very, very quickly," Trump had said.

“It’s going to be a very streamlined process, and by the way, if it doesn’t meet environmental safeguards, we’re not going to approve it.”

Trump’s order also introduced a time limit of two-years for approval of major infrastructure projects and was hailed by business groups and criticised by environmentalists.

The order would ‘put vital infrastructure that communities depend on at greater risk of flooding’, Rachel Cleetus of the Union of Concerned Scientists told The Independent.

The removal of the regulation would make floods costlier and more damaging and waste taxpayer money on projects that would get ‘washed away’, she said.

"Even as we're seeing flood risk growing in many places around the country – due to sea level rise, heavy rainfall, and other types of factors – it just flies in the face of common sense to turn back progress on greater flood prevention that communities depend on."

According to a Reuters report, Hurricane Harvey and its subsequent floods has killed at least 17, forced tens of thousands to evacuate their homes and caused tens of billions of dollars in damage.

“The breadth and intensity of this rainfall are beyond anything experienced before,” the US National Weather Service said on Twitter. “Catastrophic flooding is now underway and expected to continue for days.”