OPINION:
President Trump recently eliminated a Biden administration loophole used to strangle American mining and jobs at the behest of the wealthy, keep-it-in-the-ground lobby.
How? He signed my bill into law, reversing a 20-year withdrawal of federal mineral leasing in the Superior National Forest on Minnesota’s Iron Range.
That landmark law reversed former President Joe Biden’s politically motivated decision — and any future ones like it — to lock up the Duluth Complex, a rock formation in Minnesota estimated to hold 8 billion tons of critical minerals.
Once developed, those deposits will provide as much as 95% of our nickel reserves, 88% of our cobalt, over 33% of our copper and more.
Yet a kill switch remains available to future Democratic administrations that could stop this and the mining of other abundant natural resource deposits in the U.S. It’s the Environmental Protection Agency’s Section 404(c) veto power under the Clean Water Act, a provision that lets one agency alone kill energy and mineral projects with no real check on authority.
When a similar bureaucratic power was used in Minnesota, the result was thousands of well-paying union jobs left on the table, a critical domestic mineral supply left in the ground and a message sent to investors that America’s permitting system runs on ideology, not law.
A reminder is in order about how America once viewed its natural resources. Minnesota’s Iron Range supplied roughly 70% of the iron ore America used in World War II, more than 333 million tons in all.
As one historian who has spent years studying the range puts it: Without it, America would have lost the war.
While we are not in a conflict of that scale right now, our global strength is increasingly at risk if we continue to rely on hostile powers like China for our critical minerals.
Mr. Trump and his administration have rightly recognized this threat and are doing everything in their lawful power to make sure the federal government is a facilitator, not a hindrance, to leveraging the energy and natural resources we need for national defense, aviation, medicine, technology and almost everything else essential to our modern economy.
That’s the part of this fight many Americans don’t see. The same Biden administration, which purported to support American workers, not only shut down mining in northern Minnesota; it also actively sought to fund and promote foreign mining operations in Congo, where forced child labor has been documented in the supply chain and a heavy Chinese hand is present.
The EPA’s veto authority poses the type of political risk you would expect in Congo, not the world’s most advanced economy and greatest global ambassador for the rule of law.
Serious economies don’t let permits vanish retroactively because an agency changed its mind. They don’t let approved projects sit hostage to whichever party controls the White House.
Yet that is exactly the system that section 404(c) has created here and why multiple stakeholders have organized under the banner of the Fix the EPA Veto Coalition, sending a letter to Mr. Trump urging both executive and legislative fixes.
Mr. Trump has already proven that he is willing to use his authority to reverse specific abuses of bureaucratic power. Now Congress and the administration have a chance to go further and eliminate the underlying authority that made those abuses possible in the first place.
To address this problem, I have authored the Reducing Permitting Uncertainty Act, which has twice passed the House. But too many Democratic senators are bitterly opposed to the president’s energy dominance and re-industrialization agenda, and the bill remains stalled.
Fortunately, the core provisions of my legislation could be implemented administratively. The president could direct the EPA to undertake regulatory actions to ensure that 404(c) vetoes are exercised only on projects with clear, egregious environmental implications — and only within a clearly defined time period.
Further, the EPA should define by rule what constitutes “unacceptable adverse effects” under the statute and withdraw the precedent set by politically motivated vetoes like the ones exercised by the Obama administration against the Spruce No. 1 mine in West Virginia and by the Biden administration against mining in Alaska.
President Trump slammed shut one door that a previous environmentally radical administration had used to stop American mining. With an executive order, he can help lock it for good and kill the kill switch. I encourage him to do just that.
⦁ Rep. Pete Stauber is a retired law enforcement officer serving his fourth term as a Republican representing Minnesota’s 8th Congressional District.
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