The Ministry of the Interior said that the permit process for a uranium mine in Utah would accelerate as part of President Trump’s plan to shorten environmental reviews and to accelerate the construction of certain types of energy projects.
An environmental assessment of the Velvet-Wood Mine project will be completed within 14 days, the agency announced. Such an assessment would usually take about a year.
Critics have mentioned the plan to drastically reduce the assessment time, and projects that have been approved under such a compressed process will probably be confronted with legal challenges.
In a statement, Doug Burgum, the Minister of the Interior, said that the accelerated process was set up to repair what he called an “alarming energy law because of the extremist policy of the earlier administration.” He said that the rapid assessment “represents exactly the kind of decisive action that we need to secure our energy seeking.”
The Velvet-Wood Project, in San Juan County, Utahaims to produce uranium, which is used as fuel in nuclear power stations, as well as Vanadium, used in the production of steel alloys.
It is being built on the site of an older mine that was closed in the 1980s. The company that leads the project, Anfield Energy, is also planning to restart an uranium mill to remove Uranium from ORTS.
The domestic department said that the project would result in three hectares of country ‘disruption’. The agency refused to make the permit application or other documents in public with details about what it meant with ‘disruption’.
Sarah Fields, founder of Uranium Watch, an environmental group based in Utah, said that her organization was concerned about effects on water stocks, as well as about radioactive waste from mining activities.
Mrs Fields said that the accelerated approval process also meant: “There is no possibility of public commentary, and the public often brings problems at the desk that they are not aware of.”
Corey Dias, the Chief Executive of Anfield, called the Fast-Track “a game changer for us”.
He said he was expected to be able to reclaim 4 million tonnes of uranium and nearly 5 million tons of vanadium during the life of the project. “The fact that we are recognized as an advanced property to be put into force by the government is a big thing for us,” said Mr. Dias. “It also reflects the nature of the importance of uranium for domestic production.”
The decision to accelerate a uranium project comes when the White House is considering speeding up the construction of nuclear power plants to help meet the rising electricity demand, according to the concepts that are assessed by the New York Times.
The Ministry of the Interior has said that the United States is “dangerous reliant” about the import of uranium and vanadium to meet its needs. It argued that in 2023 American nuclear generators were 99 percent dependent on imported uranium concentrate, including from Russia.
Mr Burgum then started a process with which environmental assessments that usually last a year to complete would be completed within 14 days. More complicated environmental impact statements, which usually last two years, would be completed within 28 days, the department said.
American energy production has been almost record highs.
The Interior condenses the assessment process by claiming the emergency authority under the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act and the National Historic Preservation Act.
Fifteen states Adopted the Trump administration About the emergency aid statement. They have argued that there is no emergency situation and that the order instructs supervisors to bypass illegal assessments of fossil fuel projects, which may damage the environment.
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