The Army Corps of Engineers has identified hundreds of energy projects that could be fast-tracked for federal permits in response to President Donald Trump’s “energy emergency” declaration.
Projects tapped for “emergency” permits include Enbridge’s Line 5 oil pipeline under Lake Michigan, a pipeline linked to an oil terminal near Freeport, Texas, and a sprawling gold mining project in Idaho, according to permitting data listed on the agency’s website.
The Army Corps could potentially approve the roughly 600 pending permits without going through the normal environmental review process under the Clean Water Act, legal experts said.
While the agency hasn’t issued any permits yet in response to Trump’s declaration, environmental advocates say that approving just some of the permits would allow for the destruction of hundreds of acres of wetlands.
“What we have here is a situation of a pretext of a national energy emergency, and asking a federal agency to basically circumvent the environmental protections in order to justify building more fossil fuel projects,” David Bookbinder, director of law and policy for the Environmental Integrity Project, said on a call with reporters Wednesday.
Some permits identified by the corps appear to be unrelated to Trump’s executive order declaring an emergency. The order called for immediate expansion of fossil fuel production, mines and other energy projects, with the notable exception of solar and wind farms.
For example, a water pipeline in the Tampa Bay area is listed as eligible for an emergency Army Corps permit, as is a housing subdivision in California. Permits tied to natural gas export projects in the Gulf Coast, as well as some solar farms and electric transmission lines, are listed as eligible for emergency permits as well.
The Army Corps did not answer questions about how the permits were identified or about whether the projects would be exempt from environmental reviews. But spokesperson Douglas Garman said the agency was continuing to review permit applications potentially subject to Trump’s order.
Carrie Fox, a public affairs specialist for the Army Corps’ Detroit District, added that the agency was following Trump’s orders.
“The Department of Defense will fully execute and implement all directives outlined in the executive orders issued by the President, ensuring that they are carried out with the utmost professionalism, efficiency, and in alignment with national security objectives,” Fox said in an emailed statement.
“Executive Order 14156: Declaring a National Energy Emergency requires the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works to take certain actions, and we will work with the new administration to implement the Order’s requirements,” she added.
Under the Clean Water Act, the Army Corps is charged with reviewing federal permits for activities that could affect wetlands and surface waters.
A company seeking to fill in wetlands to build a subdivision, for example, would typically need approval from the Corps first. At times, the agency has required companies to avoid harming waters and wetlands or to commit to restoring wetlands elsewhere in order to offset for pollution from their project.
But Trump’s executive order directed the agency to give some projects “emergency treatment” pursuant to the Clean Water Act. Environmental advocates fear that could mean that no water permits — or environmental mitigation — would be required and that communities affected by projects will be shut out of the permitting process.
One project whose Clean Water Act permit is listed as eligible for emergency approval is a 37-mile crude oil pipeline near Lake Charles, Louisiana, according to the Environmental Integrity Project. The project could affect approximately 234 acres of wetlands, the group said.
The corps’ emergency permitting regulations are laid out on its website. They say that emergency permits are only issues after an event causing “an unacceptable hazard to life, a significant loss of property, or an immediate, unforeseen, significant economic hardship” that requires swift action.
An example could be a natural disaster, such as a hurricane, or a man-made disaster, such as the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore Harbor last year, said Timothy Male, executive director of the Environmental Policy Innovation Center.
If the corps ultimately fast-tracks permits under the guise of an “energy emergency,” litigation will follow, Male said.
“At the end of the day, the courts are going to decide if this emergency authority really is boundless,” he said. “We’ll see just how expansive the authority is to write whatever you want in an executive order and wave the law.”
Mines, oil projects on the list
A handful of coal mines in states like Kentucky and Pennsylvania, as well as projects tied to critical mineral projects, are included on the administration’s list of projects poised to receive fast-tracked water permits from the Army Corps.
That includes Perpetua Resources’ Stibnite project in Idaho’s Salmon River Mountains, which has secured billions of dollars in federal funding despite raising concerns among members of the nearby Nez Perce Tribe. The Biden administration signed off on the mine late last year, which could be the nation’s first mine to produce antimony, a mineral at the center of a national trade spat with China.
“The Stibnite Gold Project is the equivalent of high-risk, open-heart surgery for the South Fork Salmon River headwaters, and the watershed will be worse off as a result, not better,” John Robison, Idaho Conservation League’s public lands and wildlife director, said in a statement.
But Perpetua’s president and CEO, Jon Cherry, said the project will produce antimony needed for national defense and energy manufacturing; restore the abandoned mine site where it’s located; and rehabilitate the environment, including fish spawning habitat and surrounding wetlands.
Yet another project on the list is the Hell’s Kitchen Lithium and Power project near California’s Salton Sea that’s faced — and overcome — recent legal challenges.
A proposed Michigan pipeline tunnel could also be fast-tracked, per the Army Corps’ database.
A final environmental review for Enbridge’s Line 5 tunnel project — which aims to enclose a replacement segment of the Line 5 pipeline in a tunnel under the Straits of Mackinac — was scheduled to be released next spring, but opponents now fear that could happen sooner.
“Potentially, this could expedite that process and we could see decisions at the Army Corps much sooner than 2026, under this emergency order,” Sean McBrearty, Michigan state director of Clean Water Action, told reporters Wednesday.
“However, we are hopeful, and the public has been expressing their opinions to our lawmakers here in Michigan, that we want to see a full environmental impact statement here, not a rushed-through emergency decision under a fake emergency,” McBrearty added.
In November, Fox said the current schedule projects the draft environmental impact statement being published in spring 2025, with a final review and permit decision next year.
Ryan Duffy, an Enbridge spokesperson, said the Line 5 pipeline — which moves light crude oil and natural gas liquids — is “critical energy infrastructure.”
Still, Beth Wallace — the Great Lakes climate and energy director at the National Wildlife Federation — slammed the proposed tunnel project and Trump’s declaration of a national energy emergency.
“The only emergency surrounding Line 5 is the pipeline itself and the imminent and unnecessary danger it poses to the wildlife and people of the Great Lakes,” Wallace said in a statement.
