Executive Summary
For years, discussions about federal critical minerals policy have focused on supply chain vulnerabilities, foreign dependence and domestic production goals. Today, agencies are increasingly being judged by a different metric: whether actual projects move through federal review and reach permitting milestones. South32’s Hermosa Critical Minerals Project, added to FAST-41 in 2023, became the first mining project with full FAST-41 coverage to complete federal permitting on September 2, 2026, demonstrating the program’s coordination mechanism at work across a multiyear, cross-administration review. Separately, Executive Order 14241 has driven a sharp expansion of the FAST-41 mining portfolio: the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council reported that 50 mining and critical mineral proposals were receiving FAST-41 coordination or Transparency Project support by late 2025, 49 of them added since the order’s signing, though placement does not guarantee final approval or funding.
What Happened
President Trump signed Executive Order 14241 (Immediate Measures to Increase American Mineral Production) on March 20, 2025. Published at 90 Federal Review 13673 on March 25, the order directed agencies involved in mineral permitting to identify pending proposals and submit them to the National Energy Dominance Council. The director of the Federal Permitting Improvement…
