NMA Chief Blasts Administration's Mining, Environmental and Public Lands Policies

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SUGAR LAND--March 31, 2016--Written by John Egan for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Metals & Minerals companies operating in the U.S. find themselves between a rock and a hard place, Hal Quinn, president and chief executive of the National Mining Association (NMA) (Washington, D.C.), told several hundred attendees last week at the 118th National Western Mining Conference & Exhibition, sponsored by the Colorado Mining Association (CMA) (Denver, Colorado). The hard place was the market, which he said suffered from "too much supply and not enough demand. We're experiencing the hangover of a super cycle of high prices for several minerals, including metallurgical coal, copper and iron ore." The rock, Quinn said, was hostile U.S. public policy that could affect the mining industry's ability to recover when demand rose and prices firmed.

Speaking in Denver on March 23, Quinn told several hundred attendees at the CMA meeting that federal policy could change if voters elected a Republican president in November. Though he did not endorse any Republican for president, Quinn said it was possible to "scale the blue wall" by keeping all the states presidential candidate Mitt Romney won in 2012 while picking up Virginia, Ohio and at least one other state won by President Barack Obama in 2012 that has four or more electoral votes.

Turning from the presidential election to the mining industry, the NMA chief said long-term trends were positive for the industry: about 67% of the world's population will live in urban centers by 2050, and the world's middle class is expected to double by 2030. Both of those trends are expected to drive an increase in demand for a variety of mined products. Global energy demand is expected to rise 33% by 2040, Quinn predicted, and 80% of the world's energy needs will be met by fossil fuels.

There was little mining companies could do to affect these global trends, Quinn noted. "But let's look at what we can control, including safety." The NMA chief said 2015 was one of the safest on record for the industry, and he encouraged companies to remain vigilant about removing or minimizing safety hazards at work.

Quinn blasted the Obama administration's mineral leasing policies, which he said accepted the tenets of the "Keep it in the Ground" movement organized by environmental and conservation organizations. This was a "180-degree shift" in federal policy brought about by "pressures from non-governmental organizations (NGOs)."

The administration's reassessment of federal coal-leasing policy, announced in January, threatens to keep about 1.9 billion tons of coal underground, Quinn said. Wyoming could be the big loser, with an estimated 1.2 billion tons of coal that might not be mined if the federal government changes its coal-leasing policy. Quinn estimated it would take three years to complete the programmatic environmental impact statement (PEIS) that would inform any shift in policy. In announcing the pause in new coal leases, the Department of the Interior (DOI) (Washington, D.C.) said the PEIS would "take a careful look at issues such as how, when and where to lease; how to account for the environmental and public health impacts of federal coal production; and how to ensure American taxpayers are earning a fair return for the use of their public resources." For more on the DOI's reassessment, see February 19, 2016, article--Coal Groups Slam DOI Plan to Reassess Federal Coal-Leasing Program.

In criticizing this reassessment, Quinn said "the federal coal leasing program is one of the best energy deals for U.S. consumers around." He added that for every dollar of revenue generated by coal mining, "40 cents ends up in governments' pockets--whether at the federal, state or local levels."

Quinn also said another Obama administration initiative would be the largest withdrawal of mineral lands in history. The Department of Interior (DOI) is considering updating the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (FLPMA) to remove an estimated 10 million acres of public lands from mineral exploration for 20 years.

Quinn advocated reforming the mine-permitting process so that federal agencies better coordinated timelines. He favored a reform that included specific timelines for key decisions. "Getting a minerals mining permit takes six years longer than it took for Michelangelo to paint the Sistine Chapel," the NMA leader complained. "Time is money, though not everyone understands that."

Another area of concern for the NMA is an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) financial assurance rule the agency is developing, which Quinn characterized as "scary" and "a sleeping giant." This rule would include a model to predict the cost of cleaning up future hazardous waste spills. He said the assumptions in this model were based on "over-inflated costs to clean up Superfund sites since 1980." Quinn estimated the rule could cost mining companies tens of millions of dollars to hundreds of millions of dollars.

Not surprisingly, Quinn blasted the administration's Clean Power Plan as the "Costly Power Plan," asserting it levied $1,600 of new costs on the industry for each $1 of benefits.

The NMA chief also warned there was "a high probability" that the Obama administration could issue "midnight rules" on mining and public lands after the November election but before the next administration enters the White House next January.

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