SALT LAKE CITY— The Trump administration has launched a 14-day approval process to expand the Wildcat loadout, a fossil fuel facility near Price, Utah. The expansion would quintuple the volume of oil that can be loaded on trains headed along the Colorado River to Gulf Coast refineries.

The Bureau of Land Management’s June 17 notice says the environmental analysis is being fast-tracked under new rules stemming from President Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order declaring a national “energy emergency.” This would be the second Utah project approved under this fast-track process, which does not require the BLM to seek public input.

“This fast-tracked, back-room approval process will harm Utah communities bearing the brunt of the danger from increased oil-tanker truck traffic,” said Deeda Seed with the Center for Biological Diversity. “The Trump administration is also putting Colorado communities at risk from more oil tanker railcars traveling next to the already imperiled Colorado River.”

The loadout’s expansion could put hundreds of additional oil tanker trucks a day on already dangerous Utah roads and an additional 80,000 barrels or more of oil per day on train tracks along the Colorado River, increasing the risks of accidents, spills and water pollution. It will also worsen smog in the Uinta Basin by increasing drilling there. The expansion may compete with the proposed Uinta Basin Railway, which was the subject of a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision.

The Center is calling on the BLM to reject the application for increasing oil loading at the Wildcat loadout and to abandon the procedures that short-cut bedrock environmental laws in the name of a fake energy emergency. the United States is the world’s largest oil producer and the world’s largest exporter of liquified gas.

Typically, an analysis of a project’s environmental damage would include public input and take several months to review potential harm to air, water and other resources, consider alternatives, and evaluate measures to reduce any harm from the project.

“This extreme fast-tracking doesn’t give people a chance to review and comment on a project that directly affects their the health and safety, and that’s utterly unacceptable,” said Seed.