US House bill would toughen hard-rock mining rules
Date: 17-May-02
Country: USA
Author: Christopher Doering
The bill would hold mining companies more accountable for environmental damage, requiring them to pay an 8 percent royalty to the government for clean-up of harsh chemicals used in removing minerals such as gold, silver and copper.
Reps. Nick Rahall, a West Virginia Democrat, and Christopher Shays, a Connecticut Republican, proposed major changes in the Civil War-era law that exempts hard-rock mining companies from paying royalties or for cleaning up abandoned mines.
"The mining industry has the biggest sweetheart deal in the country," said Shays. "This legislation... brings us closer to holding mining companies responsible for their actions."
The 1872 law was signed by President Ulysses S. Grant to spur western development by making land cheap to develop.
Environmentalists argue the policy is outdated, and that mining companies should be held to federal standards requiring the coal, oil and gas industries to pay a royalty of up to 12 percent for using public lands.
"The mining industry has practiced environmental destruction while preaching responsibility," said Lexi Shultz, director of the Mineral Policy Center, an environmental advocacy group.
"With the introduction of this bill, it's time for industry to put up or shut up," she said.
Mining companies use chemicals including cyanide to peel away minerals from the land. Hard-rock mining also can pollute the water and soil with heavy metals such as cadmium, lead and arsenic.
Similar legislation has been unsuccessful in the past and it will face a stiff fight to win adoption this year. Congress, which has a number of annual government funding bills it must adopt, aims to adjourn well before the November elections.
Rahall said he has been discussing reform options with industry groups to try and build support for legislation.
The Bush administration may be willing to accept a mining royalty fee, Rahall told Reuters, but it is reluctant to impose tougher environmental requirements on hard-rock companies.
"So far we have not been able to engage them in environmental reform," he said.
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which oversees about 262 million acres (106 million hectares) of U.S. land, already has the authority to reject a mining project if it fails to meet standards for clean air and water or to protect endangered species.
The BLM is a division of the Department of Interior.
The bill "is essentially a rehash of what has been (in Congress) before," said Tom Johnson, a spokesman for the National Mining Association. "We don't think it takes into account the potential impact on mining jobs and economic costs with any measure of regulatory certainty."
The Bush administration has been criticized by environmentalists for catering to industry groups and failing to toughen environmental restrictions for hard-rock mining.
The administration last October decided to keep several previsions from a Clinton-era mining rule but angered green groups by dropping a key section that gave the Secretary of the Interior power to block mining projects likely to cause "sustainable harm" to federal land.
