RENO, Nev. >> For the first time under President Joe Biden, a federal permit for a new lithium mine has been approved for a Nevada project essential to his clean energy agenda, despite conservationists’ vows to sue over the plan, which they say will drive an endangered wildflower to extinction.

Ioneer Ltd.’s mine will help expedite production of a key mineral in the manufacture of batteries for electric vehicles at the center of Biden’s push to cut greenhouse gas emissions, administration officials said Thursday in Reno.

Acting Deputy Interior Secretary Laura Daniel-Davis said it’s “essential to advancing the clean energy transition and powering the economy of the future.”

“The process we have undertaken demonstrates that we can pursue responsible critical mineral development here in the United States, while protecting the health of our public lands and resources,” she said.

In the works for six years, construction of the Rhyolite Ridge mine should start next year in the high desert halfway between Reno and Las Vegas, the Australia-based Ioneer said.

Production is scheduled to begin in 2028 at the mine, which should produce enough lithium for 370,000 vehicles annually for more than two decades, officials said. Worldwide demand for lithium is projected to have grown six times by 2030 compared to 2020.

“I can say with absolute confidence there are few deposits in the world as impactful as Rhyolite Ridge,” Ioneer Executive Chairman James Calaway said Thursday.

“Today’s approval of Ioneer’s federal permit is the culmination of countless hours of work and a testament to our remarkable team’s dedication to developing and building one of the most sustainable mining projects in the country,” he said

The Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management issued the permit after the Fish and Wildlife Service concluded — in consultation with the bureau required under the Endangered Species Act — that the mine would not jeopardize the survival of Tiehm’s buckwheat.

The service added the 6-inch-tall (15-centimeter-tall) wildflower with yellow and cream-colored blooms to the list of U.S. endangered species on Dec. 14, 2022, citing mining as the biggest threat to its survival.

The bureau initiated the mine’s permitting process five days later. The agencies say Ioneer’s subsequent changes to the mine’s footprint alleviated concerns about potential harm to the flower.

Environmentalists said Thursday that the mine’s final approval was a politically motivated violation of multiple U.S. laws. The Center for Biological Diversity said in a statement that “litigation is now the only way (to) stop the Rhyolite Ridge Mine.” “We need lithium for the energy transition, but it can’t come with a price tag of extinction,” said Patrick Donnelly, the center’s Great Basin director. He said Biden’s administration “ is abandoning its duty to protect endangered species like Tiehm’s buckwheat and it’s making a mockery of the Endangered Species Act.”