How Trump plans to fast-track mining in Montana

详细摘要

Even without a permitting reform law, the Trump administration’s efforts to cut red tape for industrial development are taking effect.

Over the past 20 months, the Trump administration has rolled back regulations and issued executive orders aimed at unilaterally speeding up industrial development projects. In true bureaucratic fashion, even attempts to cut red tape come with a litany of acronyms you may have never heard of. Take, for instance, “FAST-41.”

Title 41 of FAST-41, or the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act, was originally passed under former President Barack Obama in 2015. It was created as a mechanism to streamline federal review for approval of large-scale infrastructure projects, and improve the public’s access to any permits and documents produced as part of federal review. Infrastructure projects can only be added to the FAST-41 list if they fall under federal review with the National Environmental Policy Act and meet certain size requirements.

In a July 2025 executive order, Trump expanded the definition of critical infrastructure projects eligible to be covered under the FAST-41 process to include artificial intelligence data centers. “My Administration will utilize federally owned land and resources for the expeditious and orderly development of data centers,” the directive reads. “This usage will be done in a manner consistent with the land’s intended purpose — to be used in service of the prosperity and security of the American people.”

FAST-41 shares similarities with the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act, or BAAJA, the permitting bill that passed the Senate this week. That legislation would overhaul environmental regulations like the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act, and change judicial review, with the goal of expediting the permitting process for projects to go from proposals to shovels in the ground more quickly. If the bill passes the House as written, its changes would be applied to all infrastructure permitting projects.

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