The U.S. Forest Service is looking at the environmental impact of updating mining regulations to expedite mine permitting and the development of critical minerals in national forests.
The announcement, made in a Federal Register notice scheduled for publication Wednesday, is part of a broader Trump administration push to make mine permitting more efficient and to speed the domestic production of minerals that are often imported.
The move to expand mining on federal lands has implications for national forests across the U.S., including the remote and environmentally sensitive Tongass National Forest in Alaska, where a rare-earth metals mine is proposed for ...