National Strategic and Critical Minerals Production Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. PETERS. Mr. Speaker, this is the final amendment to the bill, which will not kill the bill or send it back to committee. If adopted, the bill will immediately proceed to final passage, as amended.

I have been a clear proponent for reducing regulatory burdens and streamlining the environmental review process in ways that make sense.

Before I entered public service, I practiced environmental law for 15 years in large firms, in a government office, and in my own firm. Through that experience, I learned firsthand of the frustration that many businesses and local governments face when they try to navigate a sometimes overly complex and underly responsive permit process.

I also know from experience that time is money. Often a business seeking a permit is paying dearly to hold a property or service a loan while it waits for that permit to be issued, and that is why I have often said that, for applicants, no is the second-best answer. Tell us ``no'' or tell us how, but don't string us along.

Unfortunately, the approach that the underlying bill takes is not to streamline the process for analyzing the significant impacts of hardrock mining, which I might support; it just eliminates the review process altogether.

Mr. Speaker, my amendment would not solve that problem but would make an important clarification. As these critical mineral mining projects undergo environmental review, agencies should be able to assess how the project may contribute to climate change.

Recently, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, reported that the first 7 months of this year had been the hottest such period on record. Globally, average surface temperatures have increased substantially in the last century, and nearly twice as fast in the last 50 years alone. We know that the vast majority of climate scientists, including numerous leading scientific and academic organizations across the world, agree that the planet is warming due to human activities.

How many national academies reject the science of global warming? None. Between November 2012 and December 2013, there were 9,137 peer-reviewed papers written on climate change. Of those 9,137 papers, how many did not agree that climate change is happening because of human activity? One. That is right. Only 1 out of more than 9,000.

So it seems to me that when scientific organizations, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Chemical Society, the American Geophysical Union, the American Meteorological Society, the American Physical Society, the Geological Society of America, the National Academy of Sciences, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change all agree that climate change is happening because of human activity, we ought to be listening.

If 99 doctors told you that you had diabetes and 1 said he wasn't sure, wouldn't you still do something?

Now, for too long, we have heard that we have to choose between a prosperous economy and a clean environment. San Diegans and people around the country know that is a false choice. We can and we must provide economic opportunity and clean air and water for future generations.

Given the high stakes associated with carbon emissions and climate change on coastal property, energy, defense, our food supply, and our quality of life, shouldn't we at least understand the long-term costs associated with a project?

By allowing agencies to take a full environmental consideration of a project, including its potential contributions to climate change, my amendment rejects the false choice between a prosperous economy and a healthy climate. We can and we must have both.

I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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