Grijalva Blasts House Passage of Five Pro-Polluter, Pro-NRA Bills, Cheers Procedural Embarrassment for Toxic Mining Bill
WASHINGTON – House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) today issued the following statement on House passage of five Natural Resources bills that benefit the gun lobby, Big Oil, and the mining industry, the nation’s number one source of toxic pollution.
However, one bill, H.R. 2925, the Mining Regulatory Clarity Act (Amodei, R-Nev.), which would have doubled down on the flaws of the Mining Law of 1872 to make toxic dumping waste the “highest and best use” of our public lands, suffered a procedural setback when several Republicans broke ranks and voted to send it back to the Natural Resources Committee.
“This week on the House floor has been brought to us by the G.O.P. — Guns, Oil, and Polluters,” Ranking Member Grijalva said. “Once again, House Republicans are showing off their unending devotion to fulfilling the wish lists of industries that have lied to, cheated, and otherwise harmed the American people. Trophy hunters and the gun lobby get to hunt gray wolves and sell more toxic ammo. Big Oil gets to drill the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and keep their special access pass on our public lands. And one of our top polluters, the mining industry, gets to open up some of their riskiest operations in the Boundary Waters watershed. At this point, House Republicans’ polluters — and guns — over people agenda is hardly surprising, but I still can’t help but be stunned by its brazenness.”
“But fortunately, it looks like one of their bills was even too extreme for a GOP-controlled House to pass. H.R. 2925 would have allowed anyone, even our foreign adversaries, to claim our public lands for mining and do whatever ‘mining-related’ activity they wanted on them, including dumping their toxic waste. Our more than 150-year-old mining law is already a disaster for our environment, communities, and tribes, but this bill would have somehow made it even worse. I hope this is finally the end of the road for this toxic mining free-for-all mess of a bill.”
Additional Background
The following bill failed to pass the House today:
H.R. 2925 (Amodei, R-Nev.) would have doubled down on the flaws of our outdated Mining Law of 1872 to make dumping toxic mining waste the “highest and best use” of our public lands. Currently, virtually anyone can gain exclusive rights to our public lands by simply putting four stakes in the ground and paying a nominal annual fee. The one guardrail against a veritable mining claim free-for-all is that claimed lands must actually contain minerals. H.R. 2925 would have stripped this minimal requirement and allowed any “mining-related activities” to occur on claimed lands, opening the door to massive exploitation of our public lands – anywhere from mining companies dumping toxic mining waste to bad actors blocking clean energy and transmission projects with “nuisance claims.”
The following bills passed the House this week:
H.R. 3195 (Stauber, R-Minn.) benefits a Chilean-owned mining company by reinstating two dangerous sulfide-ore copper mining leases in the Boundary Waters watershed. The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness is the country's most visited wilderness area, welcoming around 150,000 visitors annually. A 2019 Harvard study found that these sulfide-ore copper mines will negatively impact the local economy over time, following the boom-bust cycle of most extractive economies.
H.R. 764 (Boebert, R-Colo.) removes Endangered Species Act (ESA) protections for gray wolves in the lower 48 states. The Trump administration delisted the gray wolf in 2020, allowing states to permit cruel hunting and trapping practices that decimated populations. A 2022 court decision reinstated ESA protections for most areas. Trophy hunters and the National Rifle Association have repeatedly advocated for delisting gray wolves.
H.R. 615 (Wittman, R-Va.) bans a ban on lead ammunition and tackle on federal public lands. Several states and local jurisdictions have banned certain lead-based products, recognizing the threat of lead poisoning to wildlife species, like the California condor and bald eagle. This bill circumvents these policies. The National Rifle Association opposes lead ammunition bans.
H.R. 3397 (Curtis, R-Utah) rescinds the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) recently finalized Public Lands Rule to put conservation on equal footing with other uses of public lands, like oil and gas drilling, grazing, and timber. The Public Lands Rule is overwhelmingly popular, with 92% of public comments on the proposed rule being in favor. In the West, where most BLM lands are located, 82% of voters across the political spectrum support the conservation of our public lands and waters.
H.R. 6285 (Stauber, R-Minn.) reinstates leases and lease sales in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), rescinds the recently finalized rule for the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, and opens sensitive and special areas to drilling, like the Bering Sea. Drilling in the Arctic threatens the home and way of life for the many Alaska Native communities that depend on the area’s natural resources and wildlife for subsistence. In addition, the economic benefits of drilling the Arctic are debatable; when the Trump administration held the first-ever lease sale in ANWR in 2021, only half of the leases received bids, with the vast majority receiving the minimum $25 per acre. The sale brought in less than 1% of the estimate revenue.
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