Steven Holt: “I have no further speakers, and I yield myself the remaining time. In closing, let me just repeat what we've heard over…”

“I have no further speakers, and I yield myself the remaining time. In closing, let me just repeat what we've heard over and over. This is unnecessary. It's not dealing with the real problems first. It is a giveaway to the mining industry to exempt them from regulations, to exempt them from paying a reasonable royalty to the American people for use of the American people's lands. It would alter nearly all mining operations on public lands in the United States by reducing or even eliminating review under the National Environmental Policy Act. It would change these mining operations not just for these rare-earth elements but for copper, uranium, sand, and gravel. The Interior Department testified this legislation would remove many of the environmental safeguards for almost all types of hardrock mines on public lands, bypass evaluation of potential impacts under the National Environmental Policy Act, and limit public involvement in agency decisionmaking. Can that be a good idea--to eliminate all those things and not actually deal with the production and supply and availability of strategic minerals? The authors of the bill say it's needed ``because it could take a developer years to get all government permits in place.'' Well, that's up to the developer to get those in. And it's up to the government agencies to make sure they do it in a way that protects the public health, protects the public lands, protects the future of communities that would be affected by this.…”