mining

CFACT Senior Policy Advisor Paul Driessen recounts the terrible destruction of families through the forced closure of mining operations in Peru in the recent past and today in Guatemala — led by a coalition of rich, mostly white liberal “social justice” warriors who fund radical activists to do their dirty work. Sadly, the courts in these Central and South American countries have allowed these protests with no input from the operators, the mine workers, or even fair-minded citizens.

The Center for Biological Diversity — an offshoot of the violent radical group Earth First!, — has been systematically using the Endangered Species Act to shut down jobs in the timber, mining, and other industries that once were major job suppliers in Western States. Worse, federal judges have been going along with this unwarranted taking of property and income for decades. It is time that this stops.

Costly ‘renewables’ requires thousands of miles of thick copper wire to connect them to a grid that was not designed for them, yet Obama’s EPA is thwarting what could be the world’s largest copper mine in Alaska.

Energy expert Marita Noon notes that the U.S. economy has an awful record for jobs creation under President Obama, and gives “kudos” to the President and the U.S. Forest Service for their work in keeping people out of work — whether it is the long-delayed Keystone Pipeline project or the FInley Basin Exploration Projecty in Montana, the strategy is delay, delay, delay — so they cannot be blamed for saying No but will never say Yes.

Rare earth mining is crucial to modern life providing critical minerals used for a wide array of products from iPhones to computers.

Yet another effort to take away the mineral wealth of the United States in looming in Colorado, thanks to Sen. Mark Udall. Even worse, the Obama Administration could just speak the Browns Canyon National Monument and Wilderness Area into being, just as President Clinton robbed Utah of much of its mineral wealth via the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

Plans by PolyMet Mining Corp. to open a copper and nickel mine in Minnesota are putting Governor Mark Dayton on the hot seat and dividing the Democratic Farmer-Labor Party just months before Gov. Dayton faces a reelection campaign in 2014. Green DFLers oppose the project, whereas Iron Range DFL members are among its strongest supporters. Demand for copper and nickel is soaring, and despite U.S. financial support for the Roy Hill Mine in Australia, the PolyMet mine would likely stimulate the local economy.

With China controlling 85% of the world’s production of rare earth elements, the rest of the world — and in particular, the U.S. economy — is beholden to China for its own natioanl security and the future of its high-tech economy. This could change with a determined effort to overcome environmentalist objections and reinvigorate U.S. production of many of these valuable minerals. But will enough politicians decide that jobs and security are more valuable than keeping minerals-bearing domestic lands “pristine”?

What’s the most inhospitable country in the world to the mining of precious metals or minerals? The United States of America – hands down.

Everyone knows that environmentalists support the expansion of renewable energy, but is their opposition to mining hurting their own cause? Well according to a new report by the National Center for Public Policy Research, the answer appears to be “yes,” especially when it comes to environmentalist opposition to copper mining.