Steven Holt: “I thank the gentleman. I just wanted to address the point raised by the committee chair. Where in the bill, he asks, are…”

“I thank the gentleman. I just wanted to address the point raised by the committee chair. Where in the bill, he asks, are there exemptions from environmental review? Well, section 102 is where they are, right at the front of this bill, page 4, if he wanted to know the page number. Under section 102, the lead agency can determine whether the NEPA law, the National Environmental Policy Act, even applies to a particular project. The whole idea of the National Environmental Policy Act is that there would be an independent review that involves public input, input from all affected interests, and input from somebody who speaks for the land and somebody who speaks for the trees. One of my colleagues a few moments ago said mining affects only a tiny, tiny fraction of the land. Well, that is, if you ignore everybody who's downstream and downwind. Section 102 allows deferring and relying on data from reviews that have been performed not under NEPA standards. The majority says, well, State reviews should suffice. Well, does anybody remember a State called Montana that was controlled by copper interests? Do you think that State's reviews of a copper mining environmental impact would suffice? Well, that's the kind of thing that would be permitted under this legislation. It would be whether to prepare a document, the determination of the scope of any review, the submission and review of any comments from the public. They could say no public comments are permitted.…”