Senate Committee Staff Calculates Costs of
EPA’s “Attack on Coal”
The minority staff of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW) earlier this month released highlights from a soon-to-be-released report on the costs of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) on-going “attack on coal.”
According to a summary paper released by the committee staff of ranking member Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), in West Virginia 2.2 billion tons of coal production proposed in permits now pending at EPA and more than 5,600 related jobs are threatened by the agency’s “enhanced” review of Clean Water Act Section 404 permits.
The summary estimates the costs of EPA policy to West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Virginia, Alabama and Pennsylvania.
According to the summary, EPA has issued only 45 of the 235 Section 404 coal mining permits it froze last year. The report concludes that EPA’s new review process goes well beyond applications for mountaintop mining, which the agency initially stated was the reason it was launching its so-called enhanced review procedures.
A copy of the EPW summary is available at: EPW summary.
U.S. Policymakers Take Needed First Steps on Rare Earth Minerals
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Colo.) recently took a series of steps designed to help ensure a secure domestic supply of rare earth minerals, which are vital for manufacturing an entire range of advanced technologies, including missile guidance systems, wind turbines, hybrid vehicles and catalytic converters, among others.
“The March 17 announcement by DOE that it will cooperate with the Department of Defense to investigate the use of these minerals in sophisticated weapons systems is especially welcome in view of China’s virtual monopoly on worldwide supplies of these materials and recent indications that China will limit future exports to meet its growing domestic needs,” said NMA President and CEO Hal Quinn in a March 18th statement.
Rep. Coffman has introduced a bill (H.R. 4866) that would complement the administration’s initiative by strengthening U.S. production of rare earths to minimize America’s growing reliance on foreign supplies and address a strategic issue before it becomes a full-blown crisis.
Molycorp Minerals CEO Mark Smith stressed the importance of U.S. rare earths production at a hearing this month before a subcommittee of the House Science and Technology Committee, where he explained the role of rare earths and outlined needed federal policies.
Smith outlined four areas of federal policy that are essential for the U.S. to develop domestic sources of rare earths production and related technologies, including: 1) federal loan guarantees that will accelerate development, including clarification of the qualifications for the Department of Energy’s programs; 2) rebuilding of the country’s rare earth knowledge infrastructure; 3) interagency cooperation and urgency, which are needed because the “global supply-demand challenges are becoming increasingly more difficult, and the administration’s efforts need to reflect a similar sense of urgency;” and 4) funding support for rare earth research.
Smith noted that, “part of China’s dominance of the rare earth market can be attributed to their efforts to find and commercialize new applications for rare earth materials.” He stressed the U.S. needs to do the same; that merely expanding domestic materials production would only make the U.S. a supplier to China’s manufacturing technology.
“These twin initiatives demonstrate how policymakers can take on the larger issue of how our country can use more domestic minerals to meet a greater share of our needs,” said Quinn.
“Rare earths are merely one example of this nation’s increasing reliance on outside sources to supply U.S. manufacturers and technology providers,” Quinn stressed.
“America’s drift away from greater self-sufficiency for the basic building blocks of our economy undermines our commitment to jobs creation and increased exports. The joint actions by DOE and Defense, coupled with Rep. Coffman’s proposal, are good first steps towards a much-needed comprehensive U.S. minerals strategy.“
A complete copy of Smith’s testimony is available at: Smith testimony.
No Hardrock Mining Reform This Year: Reid
Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said earlier this month that the Senate schedule is “too overloaded” to reform the Mining Law this year.
Reid told the Elko Daily Free Press that he wants to work out a Mining Law reform package that is agreeable to the mining industry.
“We’ve got to work out what they want, and I will take care of them,” Reid said.
“The mining companies want it, and I want it, but based on the schedule it won’t make it this year,” he said.
Reid’s statement likely spells doom for related measures pending in the Senate this year, including a bill (S. 796) from Senate Energy and Natural Resource Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) that would authorize the Department of the Interior to impose a royalty of between 2 and 5 percent on new mining operations and charge a new abandoned mine fee for hardrock operations.
A spokesman for Sen. Bingaman acknowledged that “changes are not going to happen this year.”
Senate Democrats Tell Treasury Secretary to Stop Giving
Federal Stimulus Money to Foreign Clean-Energy Companies
The Associated Press (AP) earlier this month reported that a group of Democratic senators are pressing the Obama Administration to suspend an economic stimulus program aimed at financing renewable energy, complaining that federal money is going to projects that are creating jobs in foreign countries.
The four senators, led by Chuck Schumer of New York, wrote to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on March 2 to request a moratorium on the Recovery Act program. According to the AP, the senators asked that the moratorium remain in place until they can pass legislation mandating stimulus aid flow only to projects which preserve and create U.S. jobs.
“A critical Recovery Act priority is investment in the domestic renewable and clean energy industry, not investment in foreign manufacturers,“ the senators wrote in their letter to Geithner.
The lawmakers cited a report by the Investigative Reporting Workshop, which found that a majority of the program’s grants went to foreign-owned companies, and that a majority of the turbines purchased with the money were built by foreign manufacturers.
“This is not the intended use of Recovery Act funds,“ the senators wrote.
A complete copy of the AP story is available at: AP story.
Thirty two percent of the nation’s voters “Strongly Approve” of the way that Barack Obama is performing as President.
