Rep. Stauber on HR 1366: Support Domestic Mining or Export Environmental Guilt

The Rosemont Decision and Mining Clarity

• 💡 The bipartisan Mining Regulatory Clarity Act (HR 1366) aims to restore the longstanding interpretation of hard rock mining policy on federal lands, which was disrupted by the May 2022 Rosemont decision.
• ⚠️ The Ninth Circuit's decision limited the Forest Service's ability to approve necessary mining support facilities and ancillary uses, jeopardizing nearly all new domestic mining projects on federal lands.
• 🎯 This lack of clarity hinders the US in meeting the anticipated increases in demand for metals and minerals essential for energy, infrastructure, manufacturing, and national security.

Regulatory Certainty for Investment

• 💰 Domestic mining projects require multi-decade investments of hundreds of millions of dollars, necessitating regulatory certainty and clarity for companies to invest in the United States.
• ⚖️ The current situation, where a fix can be reversed with a stroke of a pen, discourages investment, as companies cannot rely on stable regulations.
• 🛠️ HR 1366 is necessary to codify the fix in law, providing the regulatory certainty that reinstates the long-standing interpretation of mining law and agency regulations, preventing misinterpretation by courts.

Domestic Mining vs. Importing Minerals

• 🇨🇳 If the US cannot mine minerals domestically due to decisions like Rosemont, opponents of the bill effectively push the US to import minerals from countries like China, which have lax environmental and labor standards.
• 🌍 The choice is between supporting domestic mining with strict environmental and labor standards or exporting environmental guilt by importing minerals mined with child labor and forced slave labor.
• 🇺🇸 The bill supports American industry, workers, and communities by allowing them to mine the natural resources the country is blessed with, under American environmental and labor standards.

Processing and Permitting Reform

• 🏭 Beyond mining, there is a need to process these critical minerals within the United States.
• 🚧 Permitting reform is crucial to streamline processes and overcome bureaucratic roadblocks that hinder domestic mining operations.
• 📈 The speaker expresses frustration with colleagues who claim to support mining but erect every possible roadblock, creating a bureaucratic nightmare that prevents mining from happening.