House set to vote on toxic mining bill, expands harmful 1872 law

Today, the House is set to vote on Mining Regulatory Clarity Act (H.R. 1366) introduced by Nevada Congressman Mark Amodei.

This bill would be a harmful expansion of the 150-year-old law that governs mining in the U.S. that currently and allows mining companies to use federal public lands without paying any royalty or rental fees and offers no protection for communities and public lands facing the threat of toxic mining.  

The MRCA would expand mining companies’ right to use our public lands via “ancillary uses” like building roads or pipelines or dumping toxic mine waste, making even more public lands available to mining companies and prioritizing toxic mining over all other public lands uses, like renewable energy projects, recreation and cultural and ecological conservation. 

In anticipation of the House floor vote, Isabella Jaramillo, Government Relations Representative for The Wilderness Society, made the following statement: 

“Mining companies can extract valuable minerals from our shared public lands, basically for free. H.R. 1366 would take their control a step further – allowing them to point to nearly anywhere on a map, mine it and dump toxic waste with no form of accountability.  

We can all agree that we need to support a clean energy transition, but this bill is not the solution. House members must stand up and reject H.R. 1366 and focus their energy on enacting true reforms to our antiquated mining laws that preserve the public’s freedom to engage in decision-making, protect clean air and water, and support the health and well-being of frontline communities both now and for future generations.” 

Reckless provisions outlined in the Mining Regulatory Clarity Act include: 

• Allowing mining companies to claim indefinite numbers of millsites where they could dump toxic mining waste or build roads, pipelines, powerlines or other infrastructure on public land, without meaningful limitations;
• Weakening over a century of legal precedent that has limited the amount of damage to public land caused by our permissive mining laws;
• Containing no substantial limits to prevent abuses of the millsite provision;
• A savings clause requiring mining companies to prove that there are valuable mineral deposits on claims within lands that have been withdrawn from mining leaves open questions concerning mining claim validity on other public lands.