Senators hoping to boost the nation’s capacity to mine and process more critical minerals fretted Wednesday over the Trump administration’s push to cut federal positions needed to review and approve new projects.
”This administration is crippling the very public land agencies that evaluate plans for new mines,” Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), the ranking member on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said at a meeting focused on half-a-dozen mining-related bills.
Sen. Angus King, an independent from Maine, said later, “We hope those federal employees will still be here after the next several months.”
Last month, Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski likewise aired concerns that Trump’s firing of federal employees in her home state of Alaska would hurt permitting.
