U.S. Mining Permits Fast Tracked? Legal Insights on Trump Critical Minerals Executive Order

Environmental policy and regulation attorney Jason Hill was featured in a Q&A with Mining.com about the Trump Administration's executive order aiming to increase domestic production of critical minerals. The order seeks to leverage the Defense Production Act, streamline permitting reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and incentivize investment in U.S. mineral production. Mr. Hill provided context for the directive, highlighting the years-long process to complete the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) needed for permits as well as revisions to NEPA in recent years. He also explained what the order requires from federal agencies and how the review process will change as a result. Finally, he defined critical minerals and elaborated on the national security and economic implications of the order.

"[R]are earths minerals...have a single point of failure in the supply chain, with an adversary being in control of the processing or sourcing of the material – the March executive order was geared at increasing domestic production to remedy that issue [because] a lot of those minerals have military applications," he commented. "There's a real national security component to making sure that we can produce and refine those products domestically."

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