'An Attempt to Silence the Public's Voice': Trump Moves to Accelerate Oil Project Approvals

The Trump administration announced late Wednesday that it is moving to implement new permitting procedures designed to speed up reviews and approvals of oil and gas development, a plan that environmentalists called an attack on the public's right to weigh in on projects that would directly impact communities across the United States.

The U.S. Department of the Interior, led by billionaire oil industry ally Doug Burgum, said the new permitting measures would "take a multi-year process down to just 28 days at most," citing President Donald Trump's declaration of a "national energy emergency" at the start of his second term.

"In response, the Department will utilize emergency authorities under existing regulations for the National Environmental Policy Act, Endangered Species Act, and the National Historic Preservation Act," the agency said.

The expedited permitting procedures will apply to crude oil, fracked gas, coal, and other energy sources favored by the president, according to the Interior Department.

Notably absent from Interior's list are wind and solar, which accounted for a record 17% of U.S. electricity generation last year. As it has moved to boost the fossil fuel industry—the primary driver of the global climate emergency—the Trump administration has canceled grants and halted construction for renewable energy projects.

"The real national emergency is the cabal of oil and gas CEOs harming working people and wrecking the climate to line their pockets."

Collin Rees, U.S. campaign manager at Oil Change International, said in a statement that the Interior Department's announcement of accelerated permitting procedures for dirty energy "is an attempt to silence the public's voice in decision-making, taking away tools that ensure our communities have a say in the fossil fuel project proposals that threaten our water, land, and public health."

"The announcement is another giveaway to the fossil fuel billionaires who spent millions to put Trump back in the White House, justified by a fake 'energy emergency,'" said Rees. "The U.S. is the largest oil and gas producer and is expanding extraction faster than any other nation. The real national emergency is the cabal of oil and gas CEOs harming working people and wrecking the climate to line their pockets."

Alejandro Camacho, a professor of environmental law at the University of California, Irvine, wrote on social media that the Trump administration is "once again disregarding the law, environment, and even market data. Ignoring environmental laws to approve dirty projects claiming an energy emergency that does not exist."

"Meanwhile, he's killing massive private wind power projects," Camacho added. "Sounds like an emergency to me."

The permitting announcement comes days after an internal document, leaked on Earth Day, showed that Trump's Interior Department intends to prioritize weakening environmental protections and opening federal lands to fossil fuel extraction.

The department is also "looking at whether to scale back" national monuments, including Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni-Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon, Ironwood Forest, Chuckwalla, Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks, Bears Ears, and Grand Staircase-Escalante, The Washington Post reported Thursday.

"Interior Department officials are poring over geological maps to analyze the monuments' potential for mining and oil production and assess whether to revise their boundaries," according to the Post.