At a Glance

President Donald Trump signed a new executive order to "streamline the current process" for federal infrastructure projects just days before Harvey struck.Opponents fear the decision could lead torubber-stamping permits without adequate scrutiny.The Obama-era rule was designed to protect roads and buildings from climate change flooding.

Just a week before Harvey slammed into the Texas coast as a Category 4 hurricane triggering unprecedented flooding in Houston, President Donald Trumprevoked an Obama-era executive orderthat required strict building standards for all federal building projects.

Trumpsigned the executive order on Aug.15, putting an end to the Obama standards meant to address climate-induced sea level rise. Trump said he was revoking Obama's order to "streamline the current process" for infrastructure projects, according to a government official.

"We're going to get infrastructure built quickly, inexpensively, relatively speaking, and the permitting process will go very, very quickly," Trumps said at the time."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."

On Saturday, Harvey made landfall near Rockport, east of Corpus Christi. In the days since, feet of torrential rain have fallenon Houston, leading to more than 2,000 water rescues. The storm has killed at least five people and it will be months before the region recovers from devastation and flooding. The damages will be in the billions.

The Obama-era standards requiredpublic structures such as subsidized housing and water treatment plants to be built , the Washington Post noted. Other more critical structures, like hospitals, were required to be built 3 feet above that line.

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Obama signed the order the same week that theU.S. Army Corps of Engineers released aexamining flood risks for some 31,000 miles of the North Atlantic coastline, finding that the "flood risk is increasing for coastal populations and supporting infrastructure."

Nearly in the United States worth a combined $882 billion are at risk from coastal flooding, with more than 900,000 of those situated in Florida, according to an analysisby Zillow based on data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The Trump administration has long complained thatthe permitting process has gotten out of control and vowed to simplify the process.

Scott Edwards, co-director of the justice project at the Washington-based environmental group Food and Water Watch, said the decision could be dangerous and lead to , according to Bloomberg.

Rafael Lemaitre, former director of public affairs at the Federal Emergency Management Agency,told Reuters that taken in a generation" to protect infrastructure from the ever-increasing risk from climate change.

"Eliminating this requirement is self-defeating. We can either build smarter nowor put taxpayers on the hook to pay exponentially more when it floods. And it will," he said.

Marine Corps League member Jeff Webb, left, of Montgomery, Texas, and rescue diver Stephan Bradshaw, right, of South Carolina rescue a dog that was chained to a flooded porch as a result of Tropical Storm Harvey Thursday, Aug. 31, 2017 in Lumberton, Texas. (Ashley Landis/The Dallas Morning News via AP)