Here’s the hilarious part. The materials for batteries used in electric cars, so popular in California, are obtained by water cannon strip mining. The areas so mined look like the moon, and will not recover in the next ten lifetimes. But, all of those mines are in sh*thole (to quote somebody) countries. Therefore, their environments don’t matter.
You’d be surprised how quickly locust and cedar trees will move in and thrive on very poor land.
This appears at first blush to be a matter under State control as per the 10th Amendment of the Constitution.