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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Mine Interests Weathered Election Challenges Speaker Says Voters Repudiated Environmentalists

Eric Torbenson Staff writer

Foes of environmentalists can cheer November’s election results, said a noted land use activist Tuesday at the opening day of the Northwest Mining Association Convention.

“I say we faced the toughest challenge ever” from environmental activists, said William Perry Pendley of the Mountain States Legal Foundation. None of the few Republicans in the West who lost did so because of private property rights stands, he said.

Labor unions and environmental groups poured millions into Congressional races in attempts to oust pro-private property rights candidates, but failed nearly across the board, Pendley told the audience of several hundred mining executives and geologists.

In fact, the Clinton Administration’s environmental policies backfired in the case of Rep. Bill Orton, a Utah Democrat. After Clinton designated 1.7 million acres of southern Utah as wilderness area, abruptly stopping efforts to mine coal there, Orton lost his re-election race.

“The environmental issue is still a winner for the Republicans,” Pendley said. “We’re facing a challenge with the most anti-resource, and especially anti-mining administration in history.”

While the public generally supports environmental protection, that support evaporates when people realize that protecting lands can harm private property owners, Pendley said. The key is to convince the public that landowners lose financially because of Clinton policy.

Recent events at the New World Mine near Yellowstone National Park suggest that things have never been worse for miners trying to do business in this country, he said.

The mine’s backers walked away from the potentially lucrative project because of a successful campaign by environmentalists to sidetrack the mine. In exchange, the company will receive other federal land worth $65 million, barely recovering the investment costs it spent.

“If a project like New World that would have created hundreds of jobs doesn’t pass the test, what mine project will?” said Pendley, and attorney and author of the book “War on the West.”

Pendley helped author a lawsuit against the federal government challenging Clinton’s reserving of the Grand Staircase-Escalante Monument. Pendley believes the decision overstepped presidential authority, and many conservatives have asked for more public and Congressional involvement in the process of making a monument.

Convention notes:

The Spokane Research Center, formerly part of the Bureau of Mines, officially made the transition to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health Tuesday with a ribbon-cutting by Linda Rosenstock, the institute’s director. Nearly half of the 160 BOM workers remain at the research center after NIOSH absorbed the health and safety responsibilities of the closed bureau. Rosenstock said that while her agency also was once targeted for elimination, it appears safe in the current budget picture.

“We got a 10 percent increase over our last budget, not including the $32 million we got for taking in the Bureau of Mines functions,” she said Tuesday.

The convention could become a record-breaker, as the number of delegates reaches near 4,000. Outgoing executive director Tim Olson said the figures were “close” to the all-time record. The association’s new president for 1997 is Otto Schumacher of Western Mine Engineering Inc. of Spokane, replacing Jami Paul Fernette of Cominco American Inc.

, DataTimes