Trump Administration Makes Major Announcements On Infrastructure, Energy

On Sept. 29, the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) released updated National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) implementation guidance and an associated agency implementing procedures template that is designed to speed up approval for major infrastructure projects. As a White House fact sheet explained, the guidance provides clarity to federal agencies that are establishing or revising their agency-specific NEPA implementing procedures. Read the guidance at this link.

A few days prior to the CEQ announcement, the U.S. Department of the Interior said it would open 13.1 million acres of federal land for coal leasing and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced a $625 million investment to “expand and reinvigorate” the nation’s coal industry. The DOE funding will go toward:

• Projects that demonstrate readiness to recommission or modernize coal power units and provide near-term electric power reliability and capacity;
• Coal power projects that provide direct benefits of energy affordability, reliability, and resiliency in rural communities;
• Projects that support development and implementation of advanced wastewater management systems;
• Efforts to enable coal power plants to seamlessly switch between fuels, achieve full steam capacity, and economic flexibility to extend plant lifespans; and
• Projects that will maintain boiler efficiency and reliability when utilizing 100 percent natural gas.

The Interior Department also said that it will accelerate efforts to recover valuable minerals from mine waste and abandoned sites by working with the U.S. Geological Survey and partners in U.S. state governments to map mine waste deposits and fast-track projects that can recover strategic resources like uranium, zinc, germanium, tellurium, and rare earth elements. As the department said in a press release, these materials are vital for the manufacturing of defense technologies, energy production, and advanced manufacturing.