Jared Huffman: “Mr. Speaker, I remind everyone that we are at the end of this year. We are running out of time to fix the healthcare…”

“Mr. Speaker, I remind everyone that we are at the end of this year. We are running out of time to fix the healthcare crisis that Republicans have created. Christmas break is right around the corner, and hardworking Americans are struggling. They are being crushed under the weight of rising costs. What do our Republican friends have us voting on? The next bill that we have up today, H.R. 1366, the so-called Mining Regulatory Clarity Act, is just a gift for folks who really ought to be on the naughty list this time of year: foreign mining companies. I strongly oppose this bill. According to its sponsors, it is a legislative fix to the Rosemont court decision, a court case that determined that a mining company was not allowed to dump its toxic mine waste on public lands based on an invalid mining claim. You see, Mr. Speaker, for years, mining companies were allowed to dump their waste wherever they wanted without paying fair market value for that land, without public land managers having any real option to say no regardless of which precious public lands might be destroyed forever. However, in the Rosemont decision, the court held that under current law, a mining claim is only valid when it actually contains valuable minerals. That makes sense. That is common sense, if we want some common sense. However, the mining industry didn't like that.”