Wyoming is gunning for rare earth explorationThere are also permitting challenges specific to mining and processing rare earth elements. Because they contain radioactive byproducts — uranium and thorium — an operator typically must obtain a permit from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.The Wyoming Legislature, however, in 2022 passed a law allowing the Department of Environmental Quality to apply for primacy over federal permitting — a move that could speed up and lower the cost of permitting.Both the state and federal governments want to encourage more rare earth exploration, Campbell said, not only to increase the nation’s supply, but for the potential to supplement jobs and revenue lost to the declining coal industry.The Geological Survey has been conducting aerial magnetic surveys over southern portions of the Wind River Range, Granite Mountains and the Semino and Ferris mountains in central Wyoming, and has identified many previously unexamined outcroppings that could hold promise for rare earth elements and other minerals, Campbell said.“So we do the basic groundwork and then release it to the public so that companies can get a sort of a hint of an area they’d like to look at further,” Campbell said. “I do think that Wyoming is currently poised quite well, relative to other states, in terms of having some good public data available, especially with the new airborne geophysical surveys that are being flown over the state.” QUOTE Our two great strengths are lack of radioactive penalties and the chance of permitting fast tracking IMO
