A zinc mine in Arizona became the proof of concept for a new permitting shortcut in the US

The US Forest Service approved South32's mine plan for the Hermosa project — one of the world's largest undeveloped zinc deposits — under the federal FAST-41 program, created to coordinate and speed up permitting for critical infrastructure projects.

The US Forest Service approved South32's mine plan for the Hermosa project on September 2, 2026, in the Patagonia Mountains of southern Arizona. Hermosa hosts one of the world's largest undeveloped zinc deposits, plus a battery-grade manganese deposit and the emerging Peak copper discovery — all five minerals in the project (zinc, manganese, silver, lead and copper) are on the US federal critical minerals list. The approval covered infrastructure crossing federally managed public land: a high-voltage transmission line, a second access road, a tailings storage facility and water discharge points — and came about two months ahead of the deadline set by federal environmental law, under an expedited review process.

What makes Hermosa a case study isn't geological, it's regulatory: the project was the first mining venture included in FAST-41, a federal program created in 2023 to coordinate permitting for infrastructure projects deemed strategic among the various agencies that need to weigh in. It's important to understand what FAST-41 doesn't do: it doesn't eliminate any step of the legally required environmental review, nor does it waive impact studies. What it does is create a public, coordinated timeline with defined deadlines among the federal agencies involved — reducing uncertainty about when the decision comes out, not about whether it comes out. That difference matters because timeline uncertainty is itself a cost: projects that don't know when they'll be approved carry a higher risk premium in their cost of capital, making financing more expensive even before the first shovel hits the ground. South32 also used a phasing strategy to reduce its exposure to that risk: the half of construction that occurs on private land was already complete even before federal approval of the portion crossing public land, letting the company advance its timeline without depending entirely on the more uncertain regulatory outcome.

Hermosa becomes the practical reference that coordinated permitting — without cutting any environmental review steps — can significantly shorten the time between the discovery of a critical deposit and its entry into production, at a moment when the United States is trying to reduce dependence on supply chains controlled by China for battery minerals and energy-transition electronics. For anyone assessing regulatory risk in mining projects, the case shows that the variable that most affects cost of capital isn't always uncertainty over whether a permit will be approved, but over when — and that coordination mechanisms with a public timeline, like FAST-41, are a replicable public policy tool for other countries competing for the same critical minerals investment capital.