The US interior department has announced plans to radically fast track permitting for projects involving fossil fuels and mining citing Donald Trump’s ‘energy emergency’ declaration that many experts say does not exist.
The move would reduce to a maximum of 28 days permitting procedures that previously could take multiple years, the department said late Wednesday.
Green groups immediately criticized the plans to boost planet-heating fossil fuels and questioned their legality describing them as an extreme change to the nation’s core environment laws.
The department said that reviews that now typically take around a year would be reduced to just 14 days while a full environment impact statement that usually took two years would now take less than a month.
The announcement will amplify fears the Trump administration will shrink federal protections for national monuments in the west.
Interior department officials are considering scaling back at least six national monuments spread across Arizona, California, New Mexico and Utah while analyzing the potential for drilling or mining in the areas, the Washington Post reported on Thursday.
The interior department said the plans to fast track permitting were designed to “accelerate the development of domestic energy resources and critical minerals”.
“The United States cannot afford to wait,” said the secretary of the interior Doug Burgum. “President Trump has made it clear that our energy security is national security, and these emergency procedures reflect our unwavering commitment to protecting both.
“By reducing a multi-year permitting process down to just 28 days, the Department will lead with urgency, resolve, and a clear focus on strengthening the nation’s energy independence”.
Despite Trump’s claims that the US is facing an “energy emergency” the US is extracting more oil and gas than any other country in world history. Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” policy has also included attacks on efforts to transition to cleaner energy and unwind support for it by the Joe Biden administration despite sources like solar being cheaper and far less polluting than coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, an industry which the president recently announced executive orders trying to revive.
Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group, told the New York Times that the moves were a “sweeping curtailment of all meaningful public processes”.
He added: “This is manifestly illegal if for no other reason than this is all a fake emergency. We’ll be in court and we will challenge it.”
The permitting reviews will be drastically reduced using emergency powers in National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act and the National Historic Preservation Act.
