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A staffer for Joe Manchin told Reuters yesterday that the lawmaker, who chairs the Senate’s Energy and Natural Resources committee,plans to block a proposed royalty on minerals in the reconciliation package.
Manchin's position may seem obvious—since he represents coal country—but there is already a royalty levied on coal extracted from federal lands. This proposal would place a similar tax on hardrock mining, which includes minerals like gold, silver and lithium. Thanks to the 1872 Mining Law, companies currently pay nothing to extract these minerals from federal lands.
Up until the 1970s, operators could extract hardrock minerals and abandon the mines without reclaiming them. The federal government catalogued around 140,000 abandoned mines and spent around $3 billion from 2008 to 2017 to address hazards at those sites, according to the Government Accountability Office, and addressing them all could cost millions more.
“Every day that goes by without a hard rock royalty in place means more toxic metals in our western watersheds,” said Senator Martin Heinrich, a New Mexico Democrat, who supports a royalty on hardrock mining. Royalties would support the cleanup of thousands of abandoned mines, he added.
It's imperative that Congress imposes a royalty on hardrock mining, as many of the minerals needed to build clean energy infrastructure are covered by the 1872 Mining Law. Going green in the energy sector shouldn't come at the expense of taxpayers and our public lands.
Return of the Humpback Chub
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has officially downgraded the status of the humpback chub from endangered to threatened, "due to substantial improvements in the species’ overall status since its original listing as endangered in 1974."
The fish, which lives in the Colorado River Basin, has made a slow recovery, thanks to a number of factors, including "new dam release schedules that return the river to a more natural flow, the removal of predator fish and efforts to move populations of humpback chubs to new areas," according to Cronkite News.
But scientists say the humpback chub, along with other native species found in the Colorado River Basin, may never be able to thrive without human intervention, thanks to dams that have significantly altered their natural habitat.
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This goal of conserving 30 percent of America’s lands and waters by 2030 is more than a number – it is building on the nation’s best conservation traditions."
