U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva said it will be difficult to meet his goals of preventing new mining on public lands in Pima County and overhauling federal mining law.
Grijalva, who kicked off a two-year mining effort at a congressional field hearing Saturday in Tucson, said getting legislation passed to change the 1872 Mining Law or withdraw the Rosemont Ranch site from mining activity is ‘‘not going to be a walk in the park.''
‘‘None of these efforts will be easy. I knew that going in,'' the Tucson Democrat said shortly after holding the oversight hearing, for two House subcommittees, on the mining law's impact on the Santa Ritas, south of Tucson.
The hearing on Saturday revealed a hint of the tensions that will surface when hearings on the 135-year-old mining law are held later across the West, Grijalva said.
More than 300 environmentalists and mining-industry supporters packed a hearing room to argue over Augusta Resources Corp.'s plans to start mining 225 million pounds of copper annually from the Rosemont Ranch.
Opponents hammered at what they see as the inability of mining operations to clean up environmental damage after a mine closes, the industry's boom-bust economic cycle and threats of air and water pollution from dust, leaks and spills.
Allies of Rosemont stressed its 400 proposed jobs, the need for mining in the United States so mining jobs won't go to other countries and the risk to national security from depending on foreign countries for copper. Grijalva, who chairs the House Resources environment and public lands subcommittee, said he will first push legislation this year removing the 17,000 acres of public land planned for Rosemont from mining.
He said he will then try to push separate legislation withdrawing all public lands in Pima County and possibly eastern Santa Cruz County from new mining activity.
Grijalva said he will look into concerns that Augusta Resources doesn't have valid claims to use public lands surrounding its 3,000-acre Rosemont property for mining.
He also said by early next year that he hopes to put together a bill to reform the 1872 Mining Law, a law that now makes it difficult for federal agencies to deny companies the right to mine on public lands and doesn't require companies to pay mineral royalties.
A spokeswoman for the American Institute of Professional Geologists said the group supports unfettered access to public lands to ‘‘environmentally responsible and smart'' mineral-resource development.
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