Interior secretary: Mining reform a top priority

Associated Press ^ | July 14, 2009 | JOAN LOWY, Associated Press

[george76]

The Obama administration will make reforming the nation's 137-year-old hardrock mining law a top priority despite a full plate of higher profile issues, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Tuesday.

Salazar told a Senate committee considering reform legislation that "it is time to ensure a fair return to the public for mining activities that occur on public lands and to address the cleanup of abandoned mines."

The General Mining Act of 1872, which gives mining preference over other uses on much of the nation's public lands, has left a legacy of hundreds of thousands of abandoned mines that are polluting rivers and streams throughout the West. Mining companies also don't pay royalties on gold, silver, copper and other hardrock minerals mined on public land.

Reform bills have been introduced in the House and Senate, but past attempts at reform have foundered in the face of opposition from industry and many Western lawmakers.

[Sacajaweau]

Obama working on another “shaft”.

[george76]

The Environmental Protection Agency’s announcement Monday that it plans to develop new regulations

[frithguild]

it is time to ensure a fair return to the public for mining activities that occur on public lands and to address the cleanup of abandoned mines

After putting this through the disgronificator, the translation is "Finally we are going to tax environment mining companies out of existence! Woo-hoo!"

[Cyber Ninja]

reform...reform...reform.

Nothing about this country is any good for these “people”.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Yeppers!

Gotta TAX the rock, the coal, the oil, the steel - oops - already killed that industry - the shipping, the manufacturing, the health care, the grocery and farms, ....

[jazusamo]

However, a new crop of conservation-minded lawmakers from the West and a new administration sympathetic to reforming the law have generated renewed interest in an overhaul.

Translation: We are going to stop all mining on public lands.

[DonaldC]

While I don’t think obama will do anything positive for the issue, the mess governments have to deal with in regards to abandoned mines is something that needs to be dealt with.

[La Lydia]

There goes the mining industry. Another one bites the dust. And I wonder what this Tonto initiative is going to cost taxpayers.

[ForeignDude]

WHICH taxpayers!

At the rate Ogoomba is knee-capping American companies, there won’t BE any taxpayers left by this time next year.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

The hard rock mining industry couldn't survive if it had to meet US coal mining reclamation regulations. Coal miners must return the ground to approximate original contour, can't leave highwalls, must control water runoff from the disturbed area and must post a bond during and for five years after mining is completed.

[jazusamo]

I agree. Mining in the past has abused our public lands but they’re not able to get away with that now because of the enviro movement.

The enviros want to stop all mining and I believe this is a long step for them towards it.

[PIF]

Bingo!!!

More steps in the War on Natural Resource Harvesters.

Last time this happened under Clinton, we lost the world’s largest Rare Earth mine - and the ability to make supermagntes without relying on the 2nd largest largest Rare Earth mine in China.

[GraceG]

They would tax the air you breathe if they could, ooops, they are taxing that, the air you breathe out that is.

[george76]

Batteries are green in the pc world.

Are the heavy metals ( mined ) that end up in a pc battery not green ?

[ridesthemiles]

NObama just shafted the Stillwater mining co in Columbus, Montana, and it’s 1300 workers-—MINERS...

Catapillar is going to suffer also, because they provide the equipment to move the ore.

2 processing plants in NJ and CAL are going to belly up because they won’t be able to process the palladium and platinum that is mined in Montana...and ONLY Montana.

“Revising” the mining laws and demanding more extraction fees will shut down mines all over the country.....

NObama cannot even wear a hard hat...much less do the job.

What a buffoon he is.

Raise the ‘extraction’ costs, and there will be no mining to do the extraction.....UNTIL Sarah is in the Oval Office!!

[Uncle George]

Translation; “Zero’s gonna take his percentage of every rock mined in America”, just like he’s gonna sock it to the rich.——CHA-Chingggggggggg for the LIBERAL COMMIES.

[ridesthemiles]

Translation: We are going to stop all mining on public lands.”

Lots of those ‘public lands’ were declared as such AFTER valuable resources were discovered by private industry...

Ask the coal people in So Utah, who were job ready to start work on the Tuesday after Labor Day when Clinton sat on the south side of the Grand Canyon in ARIZONA and declared the Escalante National Monument....

Stopped the VERY low sulfur coal mining in it’s tracks. AFTER all the exploration work was done by private industry.

Too much of the country is “public lands” already, IMO.

[jazusamo]

Too much of the country is “public lands” already, IMO.

Agree completely and the public lands left that we have access to for mining, timber harvest, hunting, etc. is being chipped away at by enviros to keep enlarging and making new National Parks and wildlife areas that remove it from those activities.

[GraceG]

I see a new trend: Covert exclusively underground mining.

I am gonna start mining using my house a mine point, I envision giant worm like machine that slowly chews it’s way through the earth while mining for minerals illegally.