I wish more people on the street realized that, but they've been brainwashed by the PGM's (paranoia generating media) to "know" otherwise. I consult to your industry, and it's time the serious impact the threat posed by lawsuits and environmental actifists in the EPA has on mining (and other heavy industry in the US, such as oil and chemicals) was more widely publicized. Then maybe something could be done about it.
The media won't do it, but it sounds like Bush has the Republicans at least starting to say that the sky is not falling afterall, that global warming is a myth, that water and air are cleaner, that we have made enormous progress on the environmental front.
Our industry came through to help win WW II for us, and a major reason was they were run on democratic principles, letting ideas flow up as well as down, as opposed to the command and control policies of our enemies. Well, now the EPA operates on the top-down only command and control principle and we're losing our heavy industry to offshore countries (as in China, South America, Mexico, South Pacific etc. etc.). They're not so democratic there, just less nazified.
Frustration drives one to consider a 21st Century Boston tea party (a la Ayn Rand), but really all that is needed is daylighting the truth and some proactive initiatives to recover our lost industry.