Mexican president decrees automatic approval for projects

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The administration of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has issued a broad decree requiring all federal agencies to give automatic approval for all government public works projects. The decree published Monday sidesteps environmental, accountability and feasibility review processes, and gives regulatory agencies five days to grant a year-long ‘temporary’ approval for anything the government wants to build. The agencies would then have a year to grant definitive approval, by which time the projects would probably already have broken ground. López Obrador has been known for building huge projects, but Monday’s decree outraged many observers in Mexico.