Steven Holt: “I thank the Chair, and I yield myself such time as I may consume. Well, I will repeat. This bill is a giveaway. It is…”

“I thank the Chair, and I yield myself such time as I may consume. Well, I will repeat. This bill is a giveaway. It is free mining, no royalties. I referred to the archaic legislation that goes by the archaic name of the Mining Act of 1872 which excuses miners from royalty payments. That would apply here. And as for excusing the miners from environmental regulations, the legislation says that the lead agency shall determine that a major Federal action significantly affecting the quality of human environment has not occurred or is not occurring. In other words, the mining activities are excluded from, excused from, the triggering language of the Environmental Policy Act. No significant environmental policy review would be undertaken under the National Environmental Policy Act if the agency can say, Well, the State is doing something; the State is doing something, whatever that may be, however adequate that may turn out to be. So I call that a relaxation, if not an exemption, of environmental protection. And I repeat, these mining activities do not allow for a fair return to the taxpayer, the owners of this land, for the use of this land. {time} 1415 And under this, we could call anything at all strategic and critical. Yeah, sometimes the military might need to build a runway or extend a runway, but to say that the sand and gravel that's necessary to do that becomes strategic is a real perversion of the idea of strategic and critical.…”