TESTIMONY BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES, NEPA TASK FORCE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
| Jurisdiction | United States |
(Feb 2006)
TESTIMONY BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES, NEPA TASK FORCE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Executive Director
Northwest Mining Association
Spokane, Washington
LAURA SKAER
Laura Skaer is the Executive Director of the Northwest Mining Association, a position she has held since November 1996.
She earned a B.S. in Business Administration, with honors, and a J.D., cum laude, from the University of Missouri, where she served as Managing Editor of the Missouri Law Review in 1973-74. She was initiated into the Order of Coif in May 1974.
She was an associate and partner in the Kansas City, Missouri law firm of Blackwell, Sanders, Matheny, Weary & Lombardi from 1974-79. From 1979-95, she served as vice president and general counsel of Skaer Enterprises, Inc., an independent oil and gas exploration and production company. She served as Regional Vice President of the Independent Petroleum Association of America from 1989-91, and as President of the Independent Petroleum Association Mountain States in 1991-92.
Laura has testified before various congressional and state committees on mining, public lands, oil and gas, environmental and tax issues. In 1992, Governor Roy Romer appointed her to Colorado's Minerals, Energy and Geology Policy Advisory Board. She was reappointed in 1994, and chaired the board for two years. She received the Colorado Oil & Gas Association's Distinguished Service Award in 1990 and a University of Missouri Faculty-Alumni Award in 1991. In 2004, the USFS presented her with an award recognizing her outstanding leadership and cooperation in representing the mining industry with the Forest Service, and the BLM presented her with its Sustainable Development Award. She currently serves as a Trustee of the Foundation, and is a member of the Colorado and Missouri Bar Associations.
Testimony of the Northwest Mining Association Before the Committee on Resources, NEPA Task Force U.S. House of Representatives
Hearing on the Role of NEPA in the States of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Alaska
April 23, 2005
I. INTRODUCTION
The Northwest Mining Association (NWMA) is a 110 year old non-profit, non-partisan mining industry trade association based in Spokane, Washington. Today, NWMA has 1,000 members residing in 31 states and 6 Canadian provinces. Our purpose is to support and advance the mineral resource and related industries, to represent and inform members on technical, legislative and regulatory issues, to provide for the dissemination of educational materials related to mining, and to foster and promote economic opportunity and environmentally responsible mining.
Our members are actively involved in exploration and mining operations on BLM and USFS administered land in every western state. Our membership represents every facet of the mining industry including geology, exploration, mining, engineering, equipment manufacturing, technical services, and sales of equipment and supplies. Our broad-based membership includes many small miners and exploration geologists as well as junior and large mining companies. More than 90% of our members are small businesses or work for small businesses.
Our members have extensive first-hand experience with the general mining laws, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the permitting process, the 43 CFR 3809 and 36 CFR 228A surface management regulations, and issues involving access to the public lands for mineral development.
NWMA commends Chairman Pombo for forming this bi-partisan Task Force on Improving the National Environmental Policy Act. NWMA and its members look forward to working with Representative McMorris and the NEPA Task Force to help the Task Force understand what is, and more importantly, what is not working with NEPA. One of our members provided testimony at the April 23 Spokane WA Field hearing. We believe many of the findings of the NEPA Task Force and the solutions suggested, if implemented, will be a major step toward improving the competitiveness of America's mining industry.
The public lands provide a major source of domestic mineral production. Mining on federal lands. provides the nations highest paid non-supervisory wage jobs. These jobs are one of the cornerstones of western rural economies and are the foundation for the creation of much non-mining service and support business found in or near federal lands in the West. Mining is the cornerstone of sustainable development in many western rural communities.
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Mining on federal lands also provides substantial local and state tax revenues for infrastructure and services, as well as federal tax revenues. Mineral development also creates new wealth, which is distributed throughout the U.S. economy and society. Thousands of manufacturing and service jobs throughout the Midwest and Eastern parts of the U.S. are directly dependent on a strong U.S. mining industry. These economic and social benefits are dependent upon the U.S. mining industry's ability to attract investment capital in an intensely competitive global mining market.
A reliable domestic supply of minerals is essential to the nation's economic and national security, and to our quality of life. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, since 1993, the U.S. reliance on imported sources of minerals has increased seven-fold. In the early 1990's, 20% of world exploration dollars were spent in the United States. Today, only 8% of world exploration dollars are spent in the U.S. Why do mining companies find Canada, Mexico, South America, Australia and even Africa more desirable places to invest exploration dollars than the United States? This decrease is not because the U.S. lacks economically valuable mineral deposits.
The United States has been blessed with natural resources including the metals and minerals that are the foundation of our industrial economy. Only the combined countries of the former Soviet Union and Australia ranked higher than the U.S. in a recent study of the global distribution of 15 metals with important uses. Yet, U.S. mining activity continues to decrease as companies invest in other nations. There are serious consequences for this nation as more mineral activity moves abroad.
This increased dependency on imports is not in the national interest. Import dependency holds a multitude of negative connotations including aggravation of the U.S. balance of payments, unpredictable price fluctuations and vulnerability to possible supply disruptions from political or military activity. It is irresponsible to ignore the vast mineral resources we have within our nation's boundaries. Given the current state of the world, the potential for supply disruptions may be on the rise.
Therefore, it is imperative that the NEPA process be reviewed and reformed to remove inappropriate barriers to domestic mineral activity without sacrificing environmental protection. NWMA believes that reforming the NEPA process and streamlining the permitting system are critical to improving the competitiveness of the domestic mining industry.
Unfortunately, the sad truth is that the United States is considered a high risk, unpredictable country by the investment markets that supply the capital to fund exploration and development. The NEPA process, the U.S. permitting system, restricted access to mineral deposits and the inability to secure land tenure has made mineral development and production difficult, time consuming, costly and in some cases, impossible.
The mining industry is not alone in the view that delays in the permitting process are a significant problem. For example, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has concluded:
The permitting process is cumbersome, complex, and unpredictable because it requires cooperation among many stakeholders and compliance with dozens of regulations for a single mine. As a result, there is a tendency for the process
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to drag on for years, even a decade or more. This drains and diverts the resources of land management agencies that should be managing their full range of responsibilities. It is also burdensome to operators and does not provide the best environmental protection. The public, the land management agencies, and the permit applicants would all benefit if the permitting process were conducted more efficiently. Hardrock Mining on Federal Lands ("NAS Report") pp.122-123.
The costs, time delays and unpredictability of the NEPA process significantly impacts small and medium sized companies and the Canadian juniors that undertake the high risk grass-roots exploration and early stage development. They are an important part of the mining industry's food chain and provide the feed stock that will be tomorrow's producing mines operated by larger companies.
The capital markets are saying no to mineral investment on federal public lands in the U.S., or charging a premium and/or exacting repayment terms that are not required for projects on state or private land. This lack of access to capital makes it difficult and expensive for small and medium sized companies (small businesses) to operate on public lands. The time delays involved in permitting a mine in the United States tie up capital too long, resulting in unacceptably low rate of returns. Given the commodity price cycle of minerals, investors simply cannot risk investing money in projects when prices are increasing, only to have the project delayed, prices fall and the project become uneconomical.
Mining companies must have: (1) reasonable access to public lands; (2) security of land tenure; (3) reasonable permitting times; and (4) certainty in the permitting process, or the investments will not be made.
We are focusing our testimony today on two...
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