South Fort Meade Mining Project Gains FAST-41 Coverage
Contact Information
Permitting Council Press Office (media@permitting.gov)
WASHINGTON (July 22, 2025) – The Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council (Permitting Council) is pleased to announce the FAST-41 coverage of the South Fort Meade Mining Project. The $254 million project aims to extract phosphate ore, a mineral critical to achieving the crop yields necessary to meet national and global food needs.
“I am pleased to have South Fort Meade Mining gain FAST-41 coverage, ensuring that this critical project receives the most efficient pathway through federal permitting possible,” said Emily Domenech, Permitting Council Executive Director. “The Trump Administration is committed to streamlining the permitting of mining projects nationwide, and this project is well suited to receive the unique benefits of FAST-41 as we work to unleash American energy resources for the good of all U.S. citizens.”
Located in Hardee County, Florida, the South Fort Meade project aims to extend an existing mine to extract phosphate ore from known mineable reserves near the South Fort Meade beneficiation plant where the phosphate ore will then be processed. Project Sponsor Mosaic Fertilizer is the United States’ largest domestic supplier of phosphate crop nutrients, supplying over half of the country’s annual requirements. Parent company MosaicCo is the second largest integrated phosphate producer in the world and one of the largest producers of phosphate-based animal feed ingredients in North America and Brazil.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers serves as the lead agency for this project. Learn more about the South Fort Meade project 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.
The Permitting Council also serves as a federal center for permitting excellence, supporting federal efforts to improve infrastructure permitting including and beyond FAST-41 covered projects to the extent authorized by law, including activities that promote or provide for the efficient, timely, and predictable completion of environmental reviews and authorizations for federally-authorized infrastructure projects.
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Last Updated: Tuesday, July 22, 2025