(The Daily Signal)—The Department of Interior on Thursday oversaw agreements with Republican governors to speed up the permitting process for building infrastructure.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee and Idaho Gov. Brad Little signed memorandums of understanding with Permitting Counsel executive director Emily Domenech at the Department of the Interior, hosted by Secretary Doug Burgum.
“The important things for Americans that depend on this infrastructure, because it helps increase safety, lower costs, and improve their quality of life, is that we can build great things in America, build them safely, build them smartly, and build them quickly without all this red tape increasing the cost for taxpayers and slowing down the gains that you get when this essential infrastructure is built,” Burgum told The Daily Signal in an interview after the signing.
The states opted in to the “FAST-41 process,” syncing state and federal limits to make building faster.
The $7.4 billion Korea Zinc project, to build a smelter in Tennessee, will likely be the first project listed under the agreement with the state, Domenech told The Daily Signal.
The Trump administration hopes all 50 states will sign similar MOUs to speed up building.
“We want to be able to coordinate with state permitting so that we can move things quicker, so we don’t have these sort of unnecessary delays that happen across the board,” Domenech said.
Burgum expects Alaska to sign a similar agreement in the near future. This will speed up the process of building the Alaska LNG Pipelines, a $44 billion infrastructure initiative which is a priority for the president, Burgum said.
The Permitting Counsel is also holding meetings with blue states to work on agreements. Domenech is particularly focused on Pennsylvania and Arizona, she said.
“We’ve got a little ways to go to negotiate those agreements, but we’re hopeful that we can find some common ground,” she said.
As the Trump administration emphasizes affordability initiatives ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, Burgum expects the agreements will lower prices for average Americans.
“We have $1.5 trillion or higher amount of capital projects that are being held up by permitting,” Burgum said in an interview with The Daily Signal.
“If we can release those projects, whether that’s horizontal infrastructure that helps lower the price of energy, pipelines, transmission lines, water infrastructure, ports, highways, surface transportation, all of those things that lower the cost of transportation, lower the cost of delivery, lower the cost, everyday life gets better and cheaper.”
The memorandums of understanding are expected to speed up the process of building data centers.
When asked by The Daily Signal how the Trump administration would prevent these centers from raising energy prices for consumers, Burgum said data centers that are connected to their own grids can actually lower prices.
“It’s like a BYOP,” he said. “If you want to build a data center and bring your own power, you’re not tapping in or competing with consumers for their power.”
When Burgum was governor of North Dakota, his agreement with a new data center lowered the price of energy in a rural area, he said.
“We can win the AI arms race, and we can do it without raising prices, possibly even lowering prices for consumers,” he said.