Get Mining Reform Right to Protect Outdoor Recreation Values

Photo credit: Josh Hild. Boundary Waters.

Conflicts between mining and recreation are ramping up, highlighting the need to bring mining laws into the 21st century to both protect outdoor recreation and to make mining more predictable and responsible in the transition to renewable energy.

You might wonder what mining has to do with outdoor recreation. In the last few years, there have been a number of high-profile conflicts between mining projects and outdoor recreation gems. The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in Minnesota, Oak Flat in Arizona, and the South Fork Salmon River in Idaho are all popular landscapes for outdoor recreation that have been threatened by mining or affected by mining waste in recent years.

Why does mining reform matter?

Mining not only has a huge effect on outdoor recreation, it is also increasingly important in the transition to renewable energy. An increase in responsibly-sourced critical minerals is needed to meet the demand for clean energy technology like solar panels and electric vehicle batteries.  The clean energy transition is complicated by the Mining Law of 1872, an outdated law that still governs hardrock mining on the vast majority of America’s public lands. The law itself is a relic from a time when most modern mining equipment did not exist and the idea of managing public land for outdoor recreation or conservation values was still decades away. This archaic law has caused many problems—it prioritizes mining above all other uses and has few safeguards for communities affected by pollution. As a result, mining has contaminated up to 40% of watersheds in the West.

Reforming our mining laws must make mining more efficient while safeguarding local communities and conservation values. The 1872 Mining Law leaves advocates and Tribes little recourse to object to ill-placed mines, and leaves agencies with little discretion to balance mining with recreation access and other public land values. It also creates uncertainty for mining companies by increasing the likelihood that ill-sited mining projects are mired in lawsuits and delays. In the transition to renewable energy, it is important that the mining process is transparent, protects the safety and health of local communities, and allows land managers to protect special places on public lands.

Current Ideas for Reform—The Good

Last year, Representative Grijalva and Senator Heinrich introduced the Clean Energy Minerals Reform Act (CEMRA), which offers some much-needed updates to the Mining Law. It would protect special places from hardrock mining and establish a cleanup program that would alleviate pollution and waste from abandoned mines. The bill also would provide a fairer return to taxpayers from mining on public lands.

Outdoor Alliance has endorsed this bill, with VP of Policy & Government Affairs, Louis Geltman, saying, “Inappropriately sited mines and legacy mining pollution takes an inordinate toll on clean water, Tribes, local communities, conservation values, and outdoor recreation. A 150-year-old law is no way to govern such a high-impact use of our public lands and waters, particularly when we will need to do more mining to meet the needs of a clean energy transition. The Clean Energy Minerals Reform Act will help to protect the myriad values our public lands and waters provide and help to reduce conflict so that appropriately sited and managed mining projects can proceed with greater certainty."  

Current Ideas for Reform—The Bad

Another bill, the Mining Regulatory Clarity Act (MRCA) (S. 1281 & H.R. 2925), would take mining reform in the wrong direction. MRCA expands the rights of mining companies to occupy land even when they have found no critical minerals to mine. This removes one of the 1872 Mining Law’s only significant limitations on where and how public lands can be developed—courts have long found that mining “claims” aren’t valid unless valuable minerals have been discovered.

In practice, the MRCA would allow mining companies to dump mining waste on public lands without valuable minerals, and to develop mining claims (including in ways only distantly related to mining) while closing off other uses, such as recreation, conservation, or renewable energy.  Critics are concerned that it would be a land grab for mining companies, granting them authority to permanently occupy and develop federal lands with few limitations. For mining companies to occupy public lands, they should have to at least provide evidence there is something to mine.

Unfortunately, this misguided legislation has drawn bipartisan support and has been gathering momentum in Congress. Both House and Senate lawmakers are interesting in passing some kind of permitting reform that would accelerate renewable (and other) energy development on public lands, and we are concerned that MRCA has enough support that it could pass. We recently sent a letter to lawmakers with our partners at Outdoor Industry Association and The Conservation Alliance detailing our concerns about the bill. You can read that letter here.

Mining has an outsized impact on outdoor recreation and we have a key role to play in supporting good mining reform policy. You can help by writing a short letter to your lawmakers: