Incoming President Donald Trump’s transition team is reportedly being pushed by outside advisers to waive environmental reviews for critical mineral projects receiving federal funding — a move that experts say would flounder and fizzle without the help of Capitol Hill.
Trump has the leverage as president to streamline complex and lengthy reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act, but scrapping them altogether would be impossible without Congress, said Thomas Hochman, director of infrastructure policy at the Foundation for American Innovation, a right-leaning tech think tank.
“It’s famously not possible” to waive reviews through the executive branch, said Hochman. “You can’t totally exempt mines from NEPA.”
The push for critical minerals has amplified conflicts around bedrock environmental laws like NEPA and the Endangered Species Act as developers move further into areas needed to support sensitive plants and animals, water sources and tribal lands. Under NEPA, first enacted in 1970, federal agencies must conduct multiagency reviews for major projects that are approved, funded or built by the federal government.
