Mapping energy transition minerals permitting initiatives: a research project funded by the IBA Special Projects Fund

Ana E Bastida and Jane W Wachira

Centre for Energy, Petroleum and Mineral Law and Policy, University of Dundee

The accelerating demand for energy transition minerals has prompted a new wave of permitting-related reforms in a range of mining jurisdictions. Governments are increasingly treating mineral development as a strategic priority for industrial policy, energy security and supply-chain resilience, and are redesigning legal and administrative frameworks accordingly. A set of these reforms are often described in general terms as ‘streamlining’ or ‘fast-tracking’, but there has so far been no systematic legal analysis of how they are designed, how they operate, and how they differ.

Recent developments illustrate the policy momentum in this area. In the European Union, the Critical Raw Materials Act introduces streamlined permitting provisions for selected strategic projects. In the United States, the FAST‑41 regime and more recent executive measures on domestic mineral production provide mechanisms for interagency coordination and the prioritisation of selected projects. New Zealand’s Fast‑track Approvals Act 2024 establishes a fast‑track pathway for designated projects, which can include mining‑related developments. In Chile, Law 21,770 – the Framework Law on Sectoral Authorisations – creates a new basis for reorganising sectoral permitting procedures, including through a ‘smart permitting system’. Canada has established a Major Projects Office under the Building Canada Act to coordinate, prioritise and streamline approvals for projects deemed to be of national interest, including critical minerals projects. Policy instruments such as the United Kingdom’s Critical Minerals Strategy and the G7 Critical Minerals Action Plan and Roadmap also signal the importance attached to permitting processes within wider critical‑minerals strategies.

At this early stage, it is apparent that reforms vary in their institutional form and stated objectives, but the underlying regulatory design approaches have not yet been examined in a systematic, comparative way. Against that background, this research project funded by the IBA Special Projects Fund aims to undertake a structured legal mapping of selected energy transition minerals permitting initiatives. The project is in its initial phase and is currently focused on collecting source materials, refining the analytical framework and identifying a core set of initiatives for detailed examination.

The first objective is to compile and review the legal and policy instruments that establish or revise permitting frameworks relevant to energy transition minerals in selected jurisdictions. The project will identify the legal basis, scope and stated purposes of these initiatives.

The second objective is to develop and apply a set of legal criteria for analysing the regulatory design of these initiatives. The project is particularly interested in whether and how different instruments seek to change the structure and operation of permitting processes, including: the identification of competent authorities; the degree of coordination or centralisation; the definition of procedural steps and timeframes; and the relationship between mining authorisations and other regulatory regimes such as environmental assessment, land‑use planning and Indigenous or community participation. An important working question is whether initiatives that are presented as ‘streamlining’ reforms primarily pursue acceleration, regulatory strengthening, regulatory innovation or some combination of those – questions which the mapping exercise is designed to explore rather than assume in advance.

A third objective is to identify the extent to which the selected initiatives explicitly engage with, and integrate (or not) environmental protection, Indigenous rights and other public‑interest considerations into their design.

Looking ahead, the project is intended to provide the analytical foundation for a subsequent phase of research on innovative permitting solutions, assessed and formulated in light of regulatory quality considerations.

The research team comprises Dr Ana Elizabeth Bastida and Doctoral Candidate Jane Wachira (Centre for Energy, Petroleum and Mineral Law and Policy, University of Dundee); and Professor Encarnación Montoya and Dr María de los Angeles Fernández Scagliusi (Faculty of Law, Universidad de Sevilla).