(Bloomberg) -- A disputed tunnel in Michigan for an Enbridge Inc. oil pipeline is among hundreds of energy and mining projects the US Army Corps of Engineers has identified for emergency fast-track reviews after President Donald Trump’s executive order.
The list also includes permits for a Venture Global Inc. liquefied natural gas export terminal, a gas-fired power plant proposed in Texas by Entergy Corp., and a Perpetua Resources Corp. gold mine in Idaho. They’re among the 800-plus applications listed in a new “emergency permits” category quietly posted on the Corps’ website in recent days.
The Corps list follows Trump’s executive order declaring an energy emergency and ordering the agency to identify projects that “may be subject to emergency treatment.” The Corps is responsible for conducting wetlands and waterway environmental impact assessments under the Clean Water Act that can take months or longer.
“The Trump Administration appears to be gearing up to use false claims of an ‘energy emergency’ to fast-track and rubber-stamp federal approvals for projects across the country that will be destructive to America’s wetlands, waterways, and communities,” said David Bookbinder, director of law and policy at the Environmental Integrity Project. “This end-run around the normal environmental review process is not only harmful for our waters, but is illegal under the Corps’ own emergency permitting regulations.”
The Corps didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
Also on the list are high-voltage transmission line projects such the 175-mile (282-kilometer) Clean Path line in New York, dozens of solar farms and gas pipelines.
The Enbridge tunnel would house the company’s Line 5 oil pipeline, which transports up to 540,000 barrels of crude oil and natural gas liquids a day across Lake Michigan and Lake Huron.
Enbridge has been enmeshed in multiple court battles over Line 5, a crucial conduit for delivering oil from Western Canada to refineries in the US Midwest as well as in Ontario and Quebec. In addition to a dispute with the indigenous community in Wisconsin, the company is fighting an order by Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer to shut the pipeline due to environmental risks.
The Institute for Energy Research and the Mackinac Center for Public Policy urged Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to approve the project on national security grounds, arguing in a letter Wednesday that the environmental review for the tunnel had been going on for nearly four years.
“The completion of the Line 5 Tunnel will not only protect the Great Lakes but will also ensure the continued flow of essential energy resources to millions of people across the region,” Tom Pyle, the president of the Institute for Energy Research, a Washington-based free-market nonprofit group, said in a statement.
Environmental groups, meanwhile, said fast-tracking the project on emergency grounds would be a hazardous end-run around an established regulatory process.
“Rushing a risky pipeline project under the guise of an emergency would be dangerous and irresponsible,” said Beth Wallace, climate and energy director for the National Wildlife Federation.
The open-pit mine proposed by Perpetua in rural Idaho has an estimated 4.8 million ounces of gold reserves and a reserve of 148 million pounds of antimony — a byproduct of gold production that is essential for national defense, the company has said.
Its Stibnite Gold Project received approval from the US Forest Service during the Biden administration, but still needs to obtain a key water permit from the Corps. It has faced objections from the Nez Perce Tribe as well as from conservationists concerned about water pollution. A representative of the company didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
(Updates with more details throughout.)
