WASHINGTON, D.C. – Rich Nolan, President and CEO of the National Mining Association (NMA), will today testify before the House Committee on Natural Resources’ Energy and Mineral Resources Subcommittee. The legislative hearing will examine two NMA-supported bills of relevance to the mining industry: H.R. 209, the “Permitting for Mining Needs Act” and a discussion draft of the “Transparency and Production of American Energy Act.”
In his testimony, Mr. Nolan described how essential the mining industry is to every aspect of American life, with U.S. miners working to “ensure America has secure and reliable supply chains, abundant and affordable energy, and the American-sourced materials necessary for U.S. manufacturing, national security and economic security, all delivered under world-leading environmental, safety and labor standards.”
Mr. Nolan’s full testimony can be found here.
In his testimony, Mr. Nolan highlighted the importance of including the following provisions in Chairman Bruce Westerman’s “Transparency and Production of American Energy Act” and Energy and Mineral Resources Chairman Pete Stauber’s “Permitting for Mining Needs Act”:
- Setting lead agencies to coordinate the permitting process.
- Improving the timeliness of the permitting process through deadlines, or allowing project applicants to complete environment impact statements with federal agency review similar to the processes that are used in Canada and Australia.
- Maintaining access to mineralized federal lands unless specifically withdrawn by Congress and unless the U.S. Geological Survey can ensure that a withdrawal does not threaten supply chains.
- Maintaining decades of essential mining regulatory practice to not only ensure U.S. competitiveness but to prevent impediments to domestic production.
- Providing more certainty to timing of legal reviews.
- Supporting a domestic uranium industry for critical nuclear energy production.
- Providing new needed regulatory certainty to the Federal Coal Leasing Program.
- Unlocking innovation by not supporting prescriptive policies.
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