Aqqaluk Pit Exploration and Expansion Project Completes Federal Permitting

WASHINGTON (July 2, 2025) – The Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council (Permitting Council) is pleased to announce that the Aqqaluk Pit Exploration and Expansion Project has completed federal permitting. The project is an expansion of current mining operations at the existing Aqqaluk Pit at the Red Dog Mine in Alaska, and will advance the mining of zinc, a critical mineral essential to the process of galvanizing steel to protect against corrosion, amongst other uses. 

“I am excited to see the third FAST-41 transparency project reach federal permitting completion,” said Emily Domenech, Permitting Council Executive Director. “We’re showing that transparency works, and we can speed permitting and accomplish President Trump’s goal of quickly developing our critical mineral resources and competing with China.”

Added to the Federal Permitting Dashboard by President Trump’s March 20^th Executive Order on Immediate Measures to Increase American Mineral Production, the Aqqaluk Pit Exploration and Expansion Project seeks to increase mining capabilities in order to extract critically needed zinc. 

Learn more about the Aqqaluk Pit Exploration and Expansion Project Federal Permitting Dashboard. Learn more about the Permitting Council at permitting.gov. 
 

About the Permitting Council and FAST-41

Established in 2015 by Title 41 of the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act (FAST-41), the Permitting Council is a federal agency charged with improving the transparency and predictability of the federal environmental review and authorization process for certain critical infrastructure projects. The Permitting Council is comprised of the Permitting Council Executive Director, who serves as the Council Chair; 13 federal agency Council members (including deputy secretary-level designees of the Secretaries of Agriculture, Army, Commerce, Interior, Energy, Transportation, Defense, Homeland Security, and Housing and Urban Development, the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Chairs of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation); and the Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget.

The Permitting Council coordinates federal environmental reviews and authorizations for projects that seek and qualify for FAST-41 coverage. FAST-41 covered projects are entitled to comprehensive permitting timetables and transparent, collaborative management of those timetables on the Federal Permitting Dashboard. FAST-41 covered projects may be in the energy production, electricity transmission, energy storage, surface transportation, aviation, ports and waterways, water resource, broadband, pipelines, manufacturing, mining, carbon capture, semiconductors, artificial intelligence and machine learning, high-performance computing and advanced computer hardware and software, quantum information science and technology, data storage and data management, and cybersecurity sectors.

Transparency Projects: A transparency project is not a FAST-41 covered project, but rather a project that the Executive Director directs the lead agency to post to the Permitting Dashboard for transparency purposes. These projects receive the “transparency” that is at the core of the FAST-41 process but do not receive the other benefits of FAST-41 coverage, including the development of a coordinated project plan and dedicated project management by Permitting Council experts.