Montana joins FAST-41, the federal fast lane for mine and energy permits

Montana is now one of 11 states that have signed on to a federal program meant to speed up permits for mines, power lines, pipelines and other projects deemed critical to national infrastructure. A Montana Public Radio report Thursday laid out the argument over what “faster” should mean.

Gov. Greg Gianforte signed the agreement Oct. 28 in Philipsburg, after touring a tungsten mine there with Emily Domenech, executive director of the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council. It is a memorandum of understanding that opts the state into FAST-41, a process created under the 2015 Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act. According to the governor’s office, Alaska, Idaho, Missouri, Tennessee, Utah, Louisiana, Georgia, Iowa, Nevada and Wyoming signed earlier.

What changes

FAST-41 lines up federal and state permitting so agencies review a project at the same time instead of one after another. Under the agreement, Montana can identify priority projects and the Permitting Council gives technical help, convenes the agencies and tracks timelines on a public federal dashboard. The council also said it will explore providing money and software to streamline state permit applications.

Companies could always apply for FAST-41 treatment on their own. What is different now, Montana Public Radio reported, is that state agencies will be part of every new FAST-41 project from the start.

Domenech told the station the program does not exempt anything from required environmental review. “We’re only going faster because we’re coordinating the process and having more agencies work in parallel, not because we’re skipping any steps along the way,” she said. At the signing, she said the council has cut the average federal permitting review from 1,500 days to about 400, a figure from the governor’s release.

The objections

Derf Johnson, deputy director of the Montana Environmental Information Center, said he has no problem with the added transparency. His worry is scope. FAST-41, he said, is being applied to “everything under the sun,” and he expects less room for the public to weigh in. “In order to move these projects more quickly, there will have to be a reduction in public input and public participation requirements,” Johnson said.

The program also shortens the window to sue over some projects under the National Environmental Policy Act, from six years to two. Projects still have to finish the required NEPA review.

What to watch

The agreement does not approve any specific project. The first signal will be which Montana mines, energy and transportation projects the state puts forward, and whether they show up on the federal permitting dashboard with dates attached. Gianforte said the aim is to keep projects from stalling after the environmental reviews are done, particularly for energy infrastructure.

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