The 1872 Mining Law is evil. It gives mining companies cheap and privileged access to public land, and makes it virtually impossible for anyone, including the gov't, to stop them from grabbing it (yet another cost of mining that gets offloaded onto the public). Attempts to get rid of or update the absurdly archaic and destructive statute have long been blocked by legislators from mining states.
Among them is Harry Reid (D-Nev.), now the majority leader in the Senate, who spent the '90s furiously battling his fellow Senators on behalf of the hard-rock mining business in his state. Says the AP:
Reid got more than $100,000 in donations from the mining industry between 2001 and 2006, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Mining is a $5 billion industry in Nevada and is especially crucial to the economy outside of Las Vegas.
Says Reid, "We had people then that were more interested in destroying hard-rock mining." Got that? Forcing the mining industry to pay market price for land and obey the nation's environmental laws would "destroy" it. But if it can't survive without privileged treatment, why should it survive at all? Is destroying the landscape and polluting the atmosphere really a fair exchange for a few thousand jobs in the rural West? For the amount of money that's been devoted to the industry, we easily could have created public service jobs for every one of those miners. But no, that would be social engineering!
Anyway, I bring all this up because House Dems are introducing a bill today to try to reform the law, and it could lead to a clash with Reid in the Senate. The situation is aptly summarized in the AP piece:
Nevada political analysts said Reid will accept reform -- but nothing the mining industry can't live with.
A little reminder that industry shilling is not confined to any one party, house, or level of gov't.
PS: Even the CEO of Tiffany & Co. agrees that the law needs an update.
PPS: See also this post from Seattle P-I's Robert McClure, who's done as much as anyone to report on this law.
Ask Umbra on ditching dirty things
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willa Posted 12:56 am
11 May 2007
So if it's not, then I guess in a way that makes it even worse--he's willing to sell out cheap. If my politicians are for sale, I at least want them to have some standards. :)
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SustainableGreen Posted 2:31 am
11 May 2007
I suppose I could just as easily stick this into any thread and it would be appropriate, but here it J-U-S-T screams. Yes, the 1872 law is an environmental and economic disaster, but the underlying problem is the corporate oligarchy and the laws that allow them such perennial access. Campaign finance and lobbyists are the two biggest cancers of all.
Oh, and by "Reform" we should not mean it in the same way the neo-con Republicans do when they 'reformed' medical insurance, or school finance ("No Child Left With a Dime"), or voting technology, etc., etc., etc. Reform is fundamental change in something, to make it do what it was intended to do to start with, not to twist it around so it has the opposite effect.
Reid and all the rest of them should be in mortal fear of losing their jobs--and then they should lose them.
David
Sustainability For Life
Messages done with sustainable energy, with Wind and Sun!
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JMG Posted 3:52 am
11 May 2007
Environmentalists could really use a course in political realism--reading Robert Caro's three-volume (so far) biography of LBJ would be one great way to get it.
As LBJ put it, "Where you stand depends on where you sit." Reid represents a state with $5B of mining interests. If you think that Reid tipped to supporting them for $100k, then answer me this: how much would you have to contribute to get Reid to oppose those interests? Believe me, he would pay money to support mining. The reflexive recitations of statistics from the Center for Responsive Politics (a great organization, generally) shows an incomplete understanding of how politics works.
The influence of our privately funded pay-for-play election systems is not to be gainsaid, but that influence is LEAST where the money is going to someone who was already going to be in your pocket anyway.
Just as there's no amount of money that can persuade a Michigan lawmaker to oppose Detroit, the amount of money they get from Detroit is really pretty irrelevant. (The rare Michigan lawmaker who will stand up to Detroit isn't doing it for money from environmentalists, that's for sure.)
Where campaign money gets interesting is when you have it going to someone from a state with no interests or interests opposed to those of Detroit, and you see them starting to vote the automakers' party line. That's when you have to think that the money made a difference. But most campaign finance money makes no difference whatsoever in the outcome.
Generally environmentalists have drunk the Kool-Aid on campaign finance, nodding whenever someone says "The person with the most money won the election 95% (or 99%) of the time," as if that proved anything other than the fact that people who give money prefer to have given to winners rather than losers.
If campaign contributions were so influential then there would never be a legislative or Congressional victory for environmentalists.
"An optimist is someone who thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. A pessimist is someone who is afraid that the optimist is right."
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JMG Posted 4:49 am
16 May 2007
"An optimist is someone who thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. A pessimist is someone who is afraid that the optimist is right."
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