Critical Mineral Dominance Act

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mrs. GRIJALVA. Mr. Speaker, I thank Ranking Member Huffman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I strongly oppose H.R. 4090. This bill hands the mining industry the power to gut its own regulations. It directs the Secretary of the Interior to expedite and approve any mine that the administration deems a priority, and it tells the Department of the Interior and the Forest Service to identify any public lands that should be a priority for mining, without any public input or Tribal consultation.

In the eyes of this administration mineral dominance means mining above all else--above protection of our public lands, above the people who will live with toxic pollution, and above the local communities' interests.

My home State of Arizona is all too familiar with the harms left behind from an unregulated mining industry. Over a century of mining left polluted waters, poisoned land, and generations of families feeling the health impacts, including my own. Tribal nations had their lands stolen and sacred sites desecrated by the mining industry.

Some may argue that the mining industry is different now and that our regulations are in need of change. I agree that we are in need of modernization, but H.R. 4090 is a move in the wrong direction.

We need only look at the notorious track records of mining companies abroad to see what disaster will look like in the United States.

BHP, one of the world's largest foreign mining companies and one of the co-owners of the proposed Resolution Copper mine in Arizona, was responsible for the disastrous collapse of a Brazilian tailings dam that killed 19 people and spilled tons of toxic waste into a major river in 2015. This disaster has been called Brazil's worst environmental disaster.

Rio Tinto, the other co-owner of Resolution Copper, blew up a 46,000- year-old sacred aboriginal site in Australia in 2020.

Now, just upstream from Phoenix, Arizona, BHP and Rio Tinto are pushing to destroy Oak Flat, a sacred site for multiple Apache Tribes that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, to build the Resolution Copper mine. This is a mine that would create one of the largest toxic tailings dams and ponds in the world.

Does that sound like an industry ready to responsibly regulate itself?

Through the Save Oak Flat from Foreign Mining Act, I seek to reverse the giveaway of publicly owned land and the natural resources beneath it to this foreign mining conglomerate. It is clear that we have to reaffirm that decisions about mining on public lands must respect Tribal nations, local communities, and public health. Tribes and local communities most impacted by mining deserve more say, not less, in the future of their lands and waters.

This bill is about making it easier for foreign entities to extract and take away America's resources and leave the pollution to forever scar the land. We must fight back. We must listen, and we must be the advocates and fighters that we were sent here to be. We must protect our public lands for future generations.

Mr. Speaker, I urge strong opposition to H.R. 4090.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source