Permitting Council Receives Influx of New FAST-41 Covered Critical Mineral Projects

WASHINGTON (June 6, 2025) – The Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council (Permitting Council) is pleased to announce the acceptance of four new critical mineral projects to the FAST-41 program since President Trump’s March 20^th Executive Order on Immediate Measures to Increase American Mineral Production. These new projects will receive the transparency, predictability and accountability of FAST-41, ensuring an efficient permitting process that will aid the nation in unlocking America’s energy abundance. 

“I am thrilled to welcome these new projects to FAST-41 coverage and excited to know that they will receive the full benefit of our program’s unique and innovative approach to federal permitting,” said Emily Domenech, Permitting Council Executive Director. “This is just the beginning as we work to leverage the Permitting Council’s statutory authority to execute on the President’s economic agenda, support our federal partners, and unlock American energy resources.” 

The covered projects include:

• Grants Precision ISR Project: This project proposes to build and operate a uranium extraction and processing facility. The facility will create a new uranium supply from the largest contiguous uranium resource in the U.S. The project is entirely on private land in northwestern New Mexico, on approximately six square miles of land along the border of Cibola and McKinley counties, approximately 20 miles northeast of Grants New Mexico, near the town of San Mateo. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission serves as the lead for this project’s permitting process. 

• Crownpoint/Church Rock Uranium Project: This project’s objective is to construct and operate an in-situ uranium recovery facility utilizing existing NRC-licensed wellfields at Crownpoint and Church Rock. The project will include installation of recovery infrastructure, wellfield development, water treatment, and ion exchange systems. Uranium-bearing solution will be extracted from the subsurface, processed onsite, and transported for final refining. The project is located in McKinley County, northwestern New Mexico, within the Grants Mineral Belt—an area with historical uranium production. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission serves as the lead for this project’s permitting process.

• La Jara Mesa Project: The La Jara Mesa Project proposes development of underground uranium mining and surface support facilities, planned over a 20-year period, on U.S. Forest Service land within the Mt. Taylor Ranger District of the Cibola National Forest, approximately 10 miles northeast of Grants, New Mexico. The project area encompasses about 16.5 acres in Cibola County. The Department of Agriculture, U.S. Forest Service serves as the lead agency for this project’s permitting.

• Graphite Creek Project: The Graphite Creek Project is a proposed graphite open pit mine to extract graphite ore and produce a graphite concentrate for further processing and manufacturing of Coated Spherical Graphite. The mined minerals will be used primarily for the electric vehicle lithium-ion battery and energy storage markets, as well as other high grade graphite products. Graphite ore mined from the Graphite Creek Property, situated on the Seward Peninsula about 37 miles north of Nome, Alaska, would be processed into concentrate at a mineral processing plant to be located adjacent to the mine. The Department of Defense, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers serves as the lead agency for this project’s permitting. 

Learn more about these projects on the 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.