The proposed caucus resolution text:
Sulfide Mining Safeguards. The DFL remains committed to the highest protections for the environment, to benefit present and future generations.
While mining is integral to Minnesota economics and provides multiple jobs, ill-supervised or poorly regulated mining, with inadequate oversight of and provision for clean operation and final clean-up status when mines shut down is against the public interest.
The DFL supports well regulated mining, and will seek legislation to assure that before any copper or nickel sulfide mining is allowed, there will be strict monitoring in place with shut-down authority granted regulators, along with setting up a required mine-funded escrow account adequate in amount to assure remediation of any breach of environmentally sound operating practices and to cover clean-up and land rehabilitation in the event of abandonment of a mining operation. Escrow levels should be continuously monitored to assure that as scale of operations increases or other factors arise, required payments into the fund can in parallel be increased, the ultimate goal of the DFL for the state being to meet ongoing clean operating needs and to assure a pollution free Minnesota we can proudly leave for the future, with assured clean air, water, and lands.
The intent is clear. Keep these PolyMet folks on a short leash and demand an escrow.
That way they cannot exhaust the economic value of the venture and simply walk away from a mess others would have to clean up. That way if they get out of line operating the regulators can shut them down. And not by court order and preliminary injunction, but by power to regulate, with the mine being the party to go to court if they wish exemption or grace.
There is history, and the one best quote online is:
1. Opening the PolyMet mine does not mean that another mine in another country will close. Mining companies will always seek to mine metals wherever they are found. They will do so as cheaply as possible to maximize their profits and will be subject to whatever laws apply where they wish to mine.
2. The PolyMet project is full of holes and serious flaws. Until mining boosters can point to specifics in the project’s Draft EIS that say otherwise, rhetoric about how cutting edge and environmentally safe it will be is nothing but words. The DEIS fails to discuss financial assurance–a glaring omission that puts our tax dollars at risk and which a conservative like Kaiser should be able to appreciate–, it predicts water pollution from waste rock piles for up to 2,000 years, it states that the tailings basin will have a “low margin of safety.” That is just the beginning.
The source is this link. Mines operate as profitably as possible, meaning doing what the law says, but nothing more, if it costs more to be more environmentally responsible. That would lessen profits, fail to best serve shareholder profit expectations, and lessen upper management bonus rewards. They will get away with all they can. The government needs to ride herd on them, to benefit the rest of us.
Econ. 101 says all that. You don't need an MBA to follow it.
In the quote the reference to "Kaiser" refers to two Strib items still online, sequentially, here and then here. The opening link is the reply to the "Kaiser" rebuttal. Read all three in order and win the trifecta.
This link gives further info. For more on the DEIS [draft environmental impact statement], here, here, and here. Further concern, here.
This Google. Same Google, images. Sometimes an image is from a good resource site. Paying attention that way is yet another way to locate good learning tools on point to the issue.
If you have friends active in the environmental movement, quiz them over their opinions. If you are a DFL person, thinking of voting an Iron Ranger, Bakk or Rukavina, into the governor's mansion, quiz them first, over their commitments.
You learn by asking and by reading. If you thought taconite mining was and is a problem, in the words of the Gipper, "You ain't seen nothing, yet."
If you like hunting and fishing up north, consider the impacts. It's not a simple issue, but if the regulators don't have their hands tied, are not co-opted, and the escrow is kept sufficient, then downside risks are quite substantially reduced.
The other side of things, even in "the new economy" the servers and workstations need power, and to generate it you need copper, etc. Clearly the world benefits from cautious and prudent management of natural resources, and the economy, even when recycling is widespread, still will need new metals to expand - indeed to not contract.
It is a balance, but those that would soft-pedal downside risk, quite simply they are liars. Usually they are either liars with an agenda, or liars with a stake in the outcomes. A stake in the outcome is the most frequent hidden agenda to suspect. Also there are politicians with a perpetual wet finger to test the direction of the wind. Also there are idiots, who may or may not overlap the other groupings, who somehow reached a position of decisional authority.