It's time to reform mining laws.
Families across the country live with pollution from irresponsible mining, and taxpayers—not polluters—too often pay for a cleanup bill which has reached $50 billion. Why? Because our mining laws were written 150 years ago for pick and shovel miners. They’re out of touch and out of scale with modern industrial hardrock mining, and desperately need to be updated. We need mining laws that will allow taxpayers to be fairly compensated for the wealth private corporations extract from publc lands, to protect drinking water, the environment, and communities, and to hold mining companies responsible for their pollution.
Here are some of the problems mining leaves behind:
- Poisoned Drinking Water. We all deserve access to safe drinking water, but environmental damage from mining leaks and spills are a threat to public health. More than 90% of major copper and gold mines in the United States have polluted water. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, 40% of the headwaters of western U.S. watersheds have been polluted by mining. We have a responsibility to ensure this problem doesn’t get any worse.
- Taxpayer-Funded Cleanup. American taxpayers shoulder an enormous financial burden from hardrock mining. The EPA estimates the backlog of cleanup costs for our country’s hundreds of thousands of abandoned mines at $20-$54 billion -- vastly more than the entire annual Superfund budget, which the Trump Administration has proposed to cut a further 30 percent. Taxpayers are potentially liable for billions more in cleanup costs at currently operating mines.
- Accountability. Loose regulations allow foreign mining companies to come in, dig riches out of the ground, and leave the mess. Too often, taxpayers--not the polluters--are paying for cleanup. Mining companies need to be held responsible for their pollution to protect drinking water and save taxpayer dollars.
- Unfair Advantage. Under the 1872 law, public land managers prioritize mining over any other land use, giving the mining industry an unfair advantage. U.S. mining policy must provide land use choices, protecting people, jobs and the environment by balancing industrial scale mining with other important land uses, such as conservation, recreation and tourism, municipal water supplies, and renewable energy development.
- Perpetual Pollution. Hardrock mining can pollute water for thousands of years after a mine closes, requiring perpetual water treatment–and the funding for that treatment—to protect communities who live downstream. Dozens of perpetually water-polluting mines are permitted and more are proposed. Watch this PLAN video explanation of perpetual pollution.
- Taxpayer Ripoff/Public Land Giveaway. Unlike other extractive industries, under the 1872 law, mining companies pay no royalties. Whoever stakes a claim and discovers valuable minerals on public lands claims those riches -- more than $300 billion and counting since 1872 -- without giving taxpayers a dime for them.
- Industry Obstruction. For decades the mining lobby has blocked much-needed 1872 Mining Law reform that would fairly treat both public land owners -- all Americans -- and mining companies.
- Mining is Getting Dirtier and Riskier. Easy-to-find deposits are getting rarer, making extraction more expensive and riskier for local communities and the water they depend upon.
- Efficiency and Recycling. There are better ways to meet our growing mineral demand. Public and private sector investment all over the world has spurred innovations in recycling and reuse of critical minerals. In addition to improvements in efficiency, there is tremendous opportunity in “re-mining” the wastes left behind from 150 years of manufacturing (particularly important for copper, nickel, and aluminum). For example, a ton of circuit boards can contain 30 to 40 times the amount of copper mined from one metric ton of ore in the United States.