The National Mining Association (NMA) has applauded the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council’s vote to include mining under projects covered by the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act (FAST-41).
Rich Nolan, NMA president, says: “Today’s vote highlights that rebuilding the nation’s transit systems, ports and waterways, pipelines and other projects, cannot happen without timely access to raw materials made available through domestic mining. As the front end of our supply chain, American mining is key to successfully repairing our nation’s infrastructure so including mining projects among those covered by FAST-41 is an important first step in addressing permitting delays that have plagued the mining industry for years.”
Signed into law in 2015, the FAST Act was designed to improve the transparency of the federal environmental review and authorisation process for covered infrastructure projects. FAST-41 establishes new procedures that standardise interagency consultation and coordination practices, NMA says.
