Interagency Working Group Releases Long-awaited Recommendations On Mining Laws, Regulations And Permitting

On September 12, 2023, the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) led Interagency Working Group on Mining Laws, Regulations, and Permitting (IWG) released its Final Report on "Recommendations to Improve Mining on Public Lands." The Final Report was issued in response to the increasing demand for domestically-sourced strategic, industrial and critical minerals, and under the direction of President Biden's E.O. 14017, on securing American's supply chains, and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (Public Law 117-58) (BIL). The BIL required DOI to submit a report identifying legislative and regulatory recommendations to increase the timeliness of permitting activities for exploration and development of domestic critical minerals. Few of the recommendations in the Final Report, however, address this objective and, in fact, most will further complicate the permitting process and make domestic mining more expensive.