President Donald Trump will sign an executive order Thursday directing federal agencies to use their emergency authorities to accelerate energy, highway and other infrastructure projects, a move that the administration says will help jump-start an economy ravaged by the COVID-19 pandemic, HuffPost has confirmed.

The order will “expedite construction of highways and other projects designed for environmental, energy, transportation, natural resource, and other uses” and further the administration’s efforts “to reform burdensome and outdated bureaucratic processes that prevent projects from moving forward,” a senior administration official said in an email.

The two actions further the administration’s pro-industry agenda, which has targeted numerous environmental regulations in order to boost fossil fuel production and other development.

And in January, the administration unveiled a proposed overhaul of the National Environmental Policy Act, a 50-year-old law that protects air, water and land by requiring federal agencies to conduct detailed environmental assessments of major infrastructure projects.

Christy Goldfuss, a former chair of the environmental council under President Barack Obama and current senior vice president for energy and environment policy at the left-leaning Center for American Progress, said Thursday that Trump’s order “will only serve to further silence” communities of color.

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