Gov. Greg Gianforte in October signed Montana on as the 11th state to participate in a federal program aimed at streamlining new projects such as mining, energy and transportation that are deemed critical to the nation’s infrastructure. Critics worry it’ll come at the expense of the environment and public input.
The “FAST” in FAST-41 stands for Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act. It’s a measure that works to align state and federal permitting processes.
Emily Domenich, executive director of the Federal Permitting Council, said the FAST-41 process does not exempt a project from any required environmental review, and that it increases transparency by requiring projects to make data publicly available.
“ We're only going faster because we're coordinating the process and having more agencies work in parallel, not because we're skipping any steps along the way," Domenich said.
While FAST-41 does increase transparency, it also reduces the statute of limitations for some projects to be litigated against under the National Environmental Protection Act, or NEPA, from six years to two years. Projects that receive the designation still must complete the mandatory NEPA environmental review processes.
Derf Johnson, deputy director of the Montana Environmental Information Center, said moving faster on some projects is a noble goal, and that he doesn’t have a problem with the transparency element. But, he said FAST-41 is being applied to “everything under the sun,” and he’s worried it means Montanans won’t have as much say in the process.
“In order to move these projects more quickly, there will have to be a reduction in public input and public participation requirements – which is essential for making sure that Montanans are engaged and that they see these projects built on their terms," Johnson said.
Individual companies could always have applied to be on the FAST-41 list. Now that the governor has signed-on Montana, all new FAST-41 projects will involve state agencies by default at the beginning of the process.
