Posted on 02/14/2010 7:40:37 AM PST by Freedom56v2
Obtaining the permits and approvals needed to build a mine in the U.S. takes an average of seven years, among the longest wait time in the world. So despite having vast underground stores of raw materials, the U.S. is one of the last places miners go to start a project.
At the proposed Kennecott Eagle nickel mine in Michigan's sparsely populated Upper Peninsula, the wait is at seven years and growing. Global miner Rio Tinto says the project would fill a raw-material gap in the U.S. economy, but the company has yet to produce an ounce of nickel there.
Last month, a state agency issued a final order making state water, air and mine permits effective, but Rio still needs a federal water permit. And the company expects challenges from environmental groups.
Overall, the U.S. is tied with Papua Guinea for the longest approval process among the 25 top mining countries in the world, according to Behre Dolbear Group, an international mining and mineral advisory group. In Australia, a huge mining center, the process takes an average of one to two years.
The length of the mine-approval process means that the U.S., while having the reserves as well as the market appetite for metals and minerals, remains one of the top importers of the materials from Australia, Brazil, Canada and Africa.
"We are becoming more and more dependent on metal imports in the U.S.," said Luke Popovich, spokesman for the National Mining Association, an industry group. Imports into the U.S. for selected metals—including gold, copper and zinc—rose 8.7% from 1998 to 2008, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
The time frame in the U.S. isn't necessarily reflective of tougher laws. Australia and Canada have environmental laws for mine building that are on par with U.S. rules.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Michigan Ping List
I find it interesting that State permitting is completed, yet can’t get Feds to allow
Jobs Jobs Jobs........Government can’t create jobs, but they could get out of the way and let companies responsibly mine for natural resources. Wouldn’t this help balance of trade and both national and local economy?
It is a true scandal how long it takes to get mining permits. 10-20 years of permitting is not that unusual. More jobs overseas for mining engineers and miners. Thank you Congress.
Thanks, Secretary of the Interior Salazar.
More enslavement by the extreme leftists.
Pray for America’s Freedom
First thing I would do as president is stream line this process. Tell the tree hunger's to buzz off. I would use the power of the A.G. to make these things work. Coal, Mining, oil, natural gas, and Nuke power. That alone would put the USA back on the map.
It is a true scandal how long it takes to get mining permits. 10-20 years of permitting is not that unusual. More jobs overseas for mining engineers and miners. Thank you Congress.
Say yah! to da Yoopee eh?
Energy and natural resource extraction is the life blood of the economy. They make freedom, economic growth, and prosperity possible.
Obama and the radical left are intent on strangling the USA by shutting off energy and natural resource extraction.
Drain the economy of its blood and you strangle it to death. Communism is the goal.
Nothing that punitive tariffs on imported metals can’t fix. /s
Ya, I have a student in college in the U.P.—I am not a Yooper, but I love the countryside and culture eh? ;)
Drain the economy of its blood and you strangle it to death. Communism is the goal.
So Obama can promise anything he wants and still knows it will be tied up in the permit process and with environmental groups all over it.
The entire East Coast of the United States is off limits for producing Oil and Natural Gas.. as is the hanky panky surrounding the Oil shale and Oil sands in the U.S...
Can any say; CONSPIRACY!!!
He already has. He thinks we are so stupid with his third grade crap! Oh, and remember don’t go gambling when you can’t make the mortgage payment. The man is just stupid.
As the great phlosopher Al Sharpton once said about Jessie “The only thing he has ever run is his mouth”
I think there is a fasttrack procedure in place that reduces the ability to kill by a thousand cuts. Some Greenie leaders now see nuclear as the only way to go
CONSPIRACY! Envirofascists—Environmentalism is the home of socialism—it is not green; it is RED ;(
If mining, energy, or any other industrial development needs final Fed approval to proceed, then essentially the Federal government has nationalized the industry in question.
MY concern is, if the Feds don’t allow the development of natural resources now, who will be the owner, and get the profits, when that natural resource is actually sold?
Eventually, the resource will have to be exploited.
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