Interior Department to Speed Up Offshore Critical Material Development
The Interior Department will begin implementing a new policy to speed up the search for and development of offshore critical minerals, it announced Wednesday.
What’s going on: “To support a more efficient and predictable offshore minerals program, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management … and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement … are updating policies across all stages of development—from early exploration to post-lease operations and production.”
- The changes are intended to cut down on delays, improve coordination and give industry more certainty—“all while upholding key environmental safeguards.”
- For early-stage exploration, BOEM plans to “apply existing streamlined environmental reviews whenever appropriate” and to extend prospecting permits’ length to five years from three.
Leasing plan details: To speed the leasing process, BOEM will identify areas for development without first issuing formal requests or forming task forces.
- This change alone could shave from two months to a year off the development times of projects, according to the agency.
- BOEM will also begin readying environmental assessments during the lease sale phase, saving the more detailed impact statements for later planning stages, if needed.
- Once a lease is issued, the BSEE and BOEM “will continue to streamline the process by considering offshore critical mineral projects for expedited permitting under the department’s emergency procedures and other applicable laws.”
Why it’s key: China dominates global critical minerals production and refining, and in the past year has greatly restricted exports of certain critical minerals vital to semiconductors, electronics and fiber optics, among other applications.
The final say: “Manufacturers have long sounded the alarm on the need for permitting reform, and this latest plan from Interior combines that priority with the pressing need to boost critical mineral supply chains,” said NAM Director of Energy and Resources Policy.
- “Manufacturers support the administration exploring every available, feasible avenue to increase our supply of those resources and reduce our reliance on China.”