Sierra Club Reacts To Trump Administration Plan to Open More Critical Mineral Mines

WASHINGTON -- Yesterday, the Trump Administration’s Department of the Interior (DOI) released a plan to expedite the mining of critical minerals and rare earth minerals in America that doesn’t seriously consider the impacts these mining practices will have for frontline communities, tribes, and the environment.

In response, Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, issued the following statement:

“This dangerous plan puts mining companies first, before the needs of communities and workers and at the cost of some of our most important landscapes. As we have seen continuously from the Trump Administration, this is a proposal to further isolate people on the frontlines of the climate crisis and dismiss the importance of protecting public lands and workers from being exploited by mining companies as they have been for decades.

“As the communities and states across the country continue to advance our clean energy economy, we need to address our nation’s reliance on getting critical and rare earth minerals at home and abroad. But this plan does not do that. The rollbacks proposed are far-reaching, extending beyond critical minerals to others like highly toxic uranium. Our country and our clean energy economy need a strategy that is built around the concerns and needs of communities, Tribal Nations, and workers -- not the wishlists of the mining industry. That strategy must consider the effects on our environment and respect our nation’s most iconic places, and ensure that the clean energy economy doesn’t replicate the problems of the fossil fuel economy. Instead, this Administration is ignoring all of those critical elements to rubber stamp the needs of mining companies and corporate polluters and turning its back on everybody else.”

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