Balancing Economic and Environmental Sustainability in Public Policy: Gold Mining Reform

Abstract

A member of the U.S. Congress and her legislative staff undertook the daunting task of reforming federal mining policy. They encountered the political pressures involved in balancing economic and environmental sustainability when formulating policy or drafting legislation to reform environmental policy. Mining reform was one of the perennial issues before Congress because, according to the EPA Toxic Release Inventory of 2004, mining produced more hazardous waste than any other industry. Further, after a mine’s resources were depleted, mining firms often declared bankruptcy when faced with the significant expense of environmental remediation, leaving the cost to the federal government. This expense sometimes ran into the hundreds of millions of dollars, and many mines became unfunded Superfund sites. The General Mining Law of 1872 laid the groundwork for these problems; but, reform of this law would not resolve the federal risk exposure resulting from environmental mishaps on private land. Options were needed to help protect the federal government from this often overlooked risk from large-scale, hardrock mines operating in the Western states.