Denny Rehberg: “this is not a rollback of environmental laws. Critics of the mining industry charge that reviewing the Clinton- Babbitt…”

“this is not a rollback of environmental laws. Critics of the mining industry charge that reviewing the Clinton- Babbitt 3809 regulations constitutes a rollback of environmental laws. This is not true. The industry is not fighting to lessen any necessary environmental regulations governing hardrock mining on Federal lands. In fact, it supports and complies with all existing environmental statutes and supports the addition of any new rules consistent with the recommendations of the study on hardrock mining on Federal lands completed for Congress by the National Academy of Sciences. The new 3809 regulations are extremely burdensome, complex and counterproductive, and contradict the NAS report. They go far beyond filling the narrow regulatory gaps identified by the report and add onerous regulatory burdens that will deter mineral exploration in mining activity in the western United States. Unnecessarily strict new performance standards and expanded liabilities are created under the new regulations that the amendment before the House would keep in place. This would greatly disrupt the preexisting coordination between the Bureau of Land Management and the western States regarding the environmental regulations of mining. A number of new performance standards are prescriptive, one-size-fits-all requirements which are inconsistent with the Academy's recommendations that mining regulations should be based on site-specific performance standards.”