Trump Administration Adds Five More Critical Mineral Production Projects to the Federal Permitting Dashboard to Streamline Permitting

WASHINGTON (May 23, 2025) – Today, the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council (Permitting Council) announced the addition of five new critical mineral production projects to be featured as FAST-41 transparency projects. This third installment of projects is the latest batch to be added to the Permitting Council’s Federal Permitting Dashboard in response to President Trump’s Executive Order, Immediate Measures to Increase American Mineral Production, solidifying this Administration’s unwavering commitment to improve America’s supply-chain resilience, secure America’s mineral future, and strengthen the American mining industry. 

“The Permitting Council is excited to play a pivotal role in ensuring that these critical mineral production projects receive the most efficient environmental review and authorization process possible,” said Manisha Patel, Permitting Council Acting Executive Director. “My team stands ready to provide the transparency benefits of our unique program to ensure that communities across the country receive the advantages of essential infrastructure.” 

The chair of the National Energy Dominance Council (NEDC) submitted this third batch of critical minerals production projects to the Permitting Council Acting Executive Director in response to President Trump’s Executive Order, Immediate Measures to Increase American Mineral Production. The Permitting Council Acting Executive Director added the first group of 10 projects to the Federal Permitting Dashboard on April 18, 2025, followed by the second group of 10 on May 2, 2025. This latest installment is part of a continual process to provide these critical projects with the transparency and efficiency afforded by FAST-41.  The Administration remains dedicated to increasing American mineral production and anticipates adding more domestic projects on a rolling basis.

Inclusion on the Permitting Dashboard as a transparency project makes the environmental review and authorizations schedule for these vital mineral production projects publicly available and allows all of these projects to benefit from increased transparency. The public nature of the dashboard ensures that all stakeholders, from project sponsors and community members to federal agency leaders have up-to-date accounting of where each project stands in the review process. This transparency leads to greater accountability, ensuring a more efficient process. 

Additional selected projects include:      

• Aqqaluk Pit Exploration and Expansion Project

• Antler Copper Project

• South Railroad Project

• Kings Mountain Mine Project

• Liberty Owl Project

These critical mining projects will produce various commodities including copper, gold lithium and zinc. For further information about these projects, please visit Federal Permitting Dashboard’s Transparency Projects Tab. 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.