Mining reform debated
WASHINGTON – The Bush administration on Thursday came out against a suggested revision of a 135-year-old hard-rock mining law that would impose the first-ever royalty fees and environmental restrictions for mining on public land.
The regulations could hurt the mining industry, the economy and U.S. security, said Henri Bisson, deputy director of the Bureau of Land Management.
Small communities across the West that depend on mining could be devastated, Bisson said at a hearing of the House Natural Resources subcommittee. Bisson estimated that every job in the mining industry creates three supporting jobs.
While the BLM agrees the law needs to be updated, Bisson said, the department “cannot support the bill as drafted.”
Despite the administration’s opposition, Democratic lawmakers say they are determined to revise the General Mining Act of 1872, which was originally written to help settle the West and has remained largely unchanged.
Environmentalists have lobbied for decades to rewrite the law. They say it has allowed companies mining gold, copper, uranium and other minerals to pollute rivers, scar the landscape and leave abandoned mines throughout the West – all without paying a royalty fee.
This year, with Democrats in control of Congress, advocates hope they will be successful. Even lawmakers from mining states have said they believe some changes are necessary. Idaho Sen. Larry Craig, for example, testified that he backs the royalty requirement.
House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., who introduced the proposed rewrite, said, “the people of the United States deserve to receive a payment in return for the disposition of the resources we all own.”
Besides the lack of royalty fees and environmental regulations, the current law allows public lands to be sold for as little as $5 an acre, although Congress has annually prohibited that. It also elevates mining’s importance above other uses of public land, making it difficult for federal agencies to deny mining applications.
Rahall’s bill would impose environmental requirements, give federal land managers power to reject mining applications and assess an 8 percent royalty to pay for cleaning up abandoned mines.
Thursday’s nearly three-hour hearing pitted environmentalists and legal experts against mining industry supporters. They included an official from Kennecott Utah Copper Corp. and a minerals geologist from Spring Creek, Nev., who emphasized that the industry has already sent thousands of jobs overseas where the regulations are friendlier to mining.
“If the industry is threatened as it appears under this bill, our jobs will go away,” said the geologist, Ted Wilton.
A hearing scheduled in Nevada in August is expected to further explore the effect of the proposed regulations on the local mining industry.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is expected to attend the field hearing. Reid, a gold miner’s son, is a longtime defender of the mining industry and could prevent Congress from making any changes to the law.