The Trump administration on Friday released a list of 10 additional mining projects to undergo expedited federal permitting, including projects in Minnesota and Nevada that are mired in fights over water quality and endangered species.
The projects will now be placed on a public dashboard and undergo streamlined permitting under the FAST-41 process in response to an executive order Trump inked in March, calling for boosting domestic production.
While the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council, which oversees the dashboard, has touted the process as a way to bolster transparency and accountability, a number of the proposals and projects have faced legal pushback and environmental and local concerns ranging from contamination to their effect on vulnerable species.
“The transparency that these projects will receive as a result of being featured on the Federal Permitting Dashboard will be transformative, allowing stakeholders across government and industry the ability to track the progress of these projects, ensuring a level of accountability in environmental review that is often missing from the traditional process,” Manisha Patel, the acting executive director of the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council, said in statement.
