Posts Tagged by Pebble Mine Project
Environmentalists Misrepresent Data to Claim Support for Job Killing Agenda
| August 9, 2012 | Posted by Beth Shaw under Mining |
A primary rule of propaganda is that if you repeat a lie often enough it becomes the truth. Unfortunately, most of us read headlines and hear sound bites and rarely look beyond that. Therefore, what is put out there as truth is usually believed and becomes the basis for the opinions of the public at large. The wealthy ‘green’ activists groups seem to understand this concept well and have used it to give themselves credibility and to promote their job-killing agendas.
Just a couple of days ago they declared a ‘victory’ in an automated letter writing campaign against the proposed Pebble Mine Project in Alaska. They cull out enough evidence to prove they have ‘strong support’ for blocking the mining project. They leave out any evidence that proves that ‘strong support’ is shaky at best.
Worse of all, they leave out the fact that Native Alaskans and other local people have been refused a voice in the process. The powerful ‘green’ lobbies have run roughshod over the native villagers who have the most to lose if the employment opportunities of the mines is denied to them. They don’t have the wealth and connections the ‘greenies’ have, so their voices are being silenced.
Here are some facts that are in direct opposition to the claim that there is ‘widespread applause’ for opposition to the Pebble Mine Project.
The powerful environmental lobbying groups sent out a mass mailing to their membership with a quickie link to click to send a robo-comment to the EPA. They claim their response was fantastic making 98% of the comments received by the closing of the comment period as being in opposition to the proposed job and energy producing mining project. In reality, the letters came from people who were already members of environmentalist activists groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council, National Wildlife Federation, National Parks Conservation Association and the Pew Environmental Group. Out of the millions of emails that were sent out asking for a quick click to send the letter, only 6% took the few seconds to do that. So a couple of hundred thousand letters sent by people who responded sounds good until you put it into the context of how many people were asked to click on the quick link. In truth, it’s an embarrassing level of response.
This lame response is after wealthy sports fishermen from the lower-48 have spent over $40 million to get support for opposing Pebble Mine and shut out public dialogue. Native Alaskans don’t have that kind of money to spend to get support. Their voices have been shut-out by the well-heeled who want to use their home lands for their own personal playground.
Another problem with their claim of ‘widespread’ opposition is that they left out the people most affected by whether or not the the EPA allows the Pebble Mine Project to proceed. Native Alaskans and villagers. Ten of the 12 Alaska Native Corporations, village corporations, tribal governments, state leadership and local leaders say this is a rush to nowhere. They say there is no threat and that a thoughtful scientific study is needed – not a rushed political move.
So the environmentalist’s claim of overwhelming support for pre-emptively denying the Pebble Mine Project to grossly overstated. In reality, it is propaganda. The lie is repeated over and over until it becomes truth. At least in the mind of the people. Meanwhile, average Americans will have to continue buying resources from other countries, paying more for it and Native Alaskans and villagers will be denied jobs and continue to struggle to live (or be forced to move away from their homes, giving up their Native culture!)
It gets so tiresome, doesn’t it. Having to dig so deep to ferret out the truth from the constant flow of misinformation we are fed by these groups who hold the general public in such contempt that they put their own pleasure above the livelihood of people in their own homes.
Once again we ask that the comment period be reopened in order to give Alaskans a chance to have their voices heard in this important debate.
Does the EPA Have Selective Hearing?
| June 25, 2012 | Posted by Beth Shaw under Mining |
A few months ago we reported that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had snubbed Native American groups in an apparent effort to ‘Keystone’ the Pebble Mine Project in Alaska. The same group of mining supporters have tried to meet with EPA Director Lisa Jackson again and again she has refused to meet with them.
Lisa Jackson
Both Native groups, community leaders and authorities (including Alaska’s Attorney General) have attempted to meet with and have their voices heard by the EPA. But it appears the EPA has developed selective hearing, only giving an ear to the voices of those who agree with the radical environmentalists who seem to oppose any development of resources within the United States.
A June 21, 2012 Greenwire article quotes an EPA spokesperson who states that the EPA has reached out to Native communities in Southwestern Alaska to offer them an opportunity to have their voices heard regarding the Pebble Mine Project. However, according to Trefon Angasan, board chairman of Alaska Peninsula Corp., a grouping of Alaska Native villages, the communities that have had the ear of the EPA aren’t close to the potential mining site. One of the communities Lisa Jackson has visited is Dillingham, Alaska, an anti-mining stronghold.
“We should have a consultation established with the EPA, and we don’t,” Angasan said, complaining about the lack of high-level consultation required for federally recognized tribes. “We have been excluded from the development of that watershed assessment.”
EPA’s comment period on the draft assessment runs through July 23. Alaska Attorney General Michael Geraghty (R) is calling for a delay until November.
“In short, this is a voluminous amount of complex information that requires thorough public review and comment,” Geraghty told the agency in a recent letter. “As EPA is well aware, normally such information for a specific proposed project takes several years to gather and be scientifically vetted and scrutinized by multiple state and federal agencies, which has not occurred here.”
Angasan said, “Right now, our people are gathering, they are fishing, they’re getting ready to fill their freezers for the summer so they can survive the winter. And they don’t have time to put everything aside.”
The EPA has not ruled out a preemptive veto of the Pebble Mine Project’s permitting process using the Clean Water Act. All this while the economic viability of the Native Alaskan communities in the area are tenuous at best. The Pebble Mine Project would inject jobs and businesses into the area that would not only allow the communities to survive, but would help them thrive. Lisa Reimers, CEO of Iliamna Development Corp. says that preemptively vetoing the development of Pebble Mine could amount to ‘cultural genocide’ for the Native peoples living in the area.
There is a lot at stake here. How this situation plays out in Alaska has implications far beyond Bristol Bay. The EPA’s unprecedented power grab and expansion impacts not only Alaskans and the Pebble Mine Project. If the EPA succeeds in preemptively shutting down the Pebble Mine Project, they will have the power to do the same with any project any where without input from local people and authorities.
This is not just about shutting down the jobs and economic boost available through the Pebble Mine Project. It is about the expansion of EPA’s power to use the Clean Water Act to shut down private citizens who just want to build a home or any other industrial project that attracts the ire of the radical environmentalists.
You can help by signing a letter, which will send an official comment to the EPA requesting that they extend the commenting period on Pebble, which is too short for a thoughtful discussion on this issue: Sign the letter here.
National Security Threatened By EPA Regulations: China Provides Critical Elements for US Military
| June 8, 2012 | Posted by Beth Shaw under Mining |
The President of the United States performs under a constitutional mandate to ‘provide for the common Defense.’ One certainly hopes that would be the primary concern of anyone who holds the office of the Presidency or works in any American Presidential Administration. It is one of the areas in which government excels and must be involved. However, it seems that at times politics, political donors with deep pockets and special interest groups, such as the environmental extremists, have taken precedent over many of the interests of the people. Not to mention ‘the common defense’.
A new study conducted by American Resources Policy Network (pdf file) was released yesterday and the results are a bit disturbing to say the least.
The study defines critical and strategic metals and minerals as ‘materials required for defense and national security needs’ and ‘those materials for which the U.S. is largely import dependent, for which no viable economic substitute exists, or for which there is concern over the source (for geopolitical reasons) or the supply (for market reasons).’
That’s all well and good but there’s a little bit of a problem. That problem is that we are not harvesting the supply that is available to us in the United States. For instance, the refusal of the EPA to allow the Pebble Mine Project in Alaska to even complete the permit process to extract copper from the Earth in that area. One has to wonder why that would be. Surely it wouldn’t be for purely political reasons? Or would it?
Instead of taking advantage of our own natural resources, the Pentagon is having to buy critical materials from China and elsewhere. It defies common sense. But then we all know that ‘common sense’ is a misnomer as it is anything but common.
The Washington Examiner has picked up on the American Resources Policy Network study:
China supplies 43 percent of the minerals like lithium and bismuth the U.S. national security industry is 90 to 100 percent dependent on foreign suppliers for. Worse: The U.S. is at least 50 percent dependent on foreign suppliers for 43 key minerals, more than America’s dependence on foreign oil.
The question we have to ask ourselves is are we really willing to undermine our own national security, not to mention jobs, economic and energy independence, so that the wealthy can have their playgrounds and not worry about actually having to SEE where their energy comes from? I mean, you don’t really think they give up their private jets, computers and cell phones, do you? All of those things take copper and that copper is mined somewhere – specifically China.
Twenty-two percent of the United State’s mineral imports come from China. That is a disproportionately high number. Especially when one considers the amount of those resources available here that are being regulated out of business by Obama’s EPA.
I guess it makes environmentalists feel good about themselves to think they are actually doing something for the environment, when in fact their actions are causing MORE damage to the environment. Its just on the other side of the world and not in their own backyards.
More from the study:
The group recommends that the administration reverse course and open up public lands to mining for strategic materials and build reserves. “U.S. important dependence is largely self-inflicted,” said the group.
“The U.S. government desperately needs a coherent national mineral access strategy,” said Daniel McGroarty, President of the American Resources Policy Network. “We are acutely dependent on foreign supplies of non-fuel minerals and metals that are vital to commercial manufacturing and advanced weapons systems. Our exposure to potential supply disruptions is a profound national security threat.”
In other words, ‘Mine baby, mine!’
The EPA vs States Rights: Robin Hayes Supports EPA Expansion Of Power
| May 7, 2012 | Posted by Beth Shaw under Mining |
We have to ask ourselves what someone’s motivation might be whenever that person does something that defies reason and is contrary to their normal mode of operation. Such is the case of Robin Hayes, the North Carolina Republican Party Chairman, as he has recently written an open letter supporting the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) massive expansion.
Specifically, Mr. Hayes has written his open letter in support of the EPA’s ongoing efforts to block the development of the Pebble Mine Project in Alaska. That project would provide much needed resources that would help alleviate the economic depression in the area, would provide jobs to the Native American and other people in the area and would provide energy resources for the country.
What is Robin Hayes thinking?
Why would a North Carolina Republican come out in support of preemptive measures to stop mining on State land a continent away in Alaska? Why would he support the unprecedented expansion of the powers of the EPA?
Surely a representative of the people wouldn’t put his own financial interests over the interests of the people he is supposed to represent? That would be downright hypocritical and counter to the trust of the people he is supposed to be representing!
So what is Hayes up to? It might have something to do with his favorite Bristol Bay fishing hole.
The Hill tacked a short profile of Hayes to his letter, saying, “He is a frequent visitor to Alaska’s Bristol Bay, where he stays at Brian Kraft’s Alaska Sportsman’s Lodges.”
The reference is to two luxury lodges, where the tab for one week is $8,675, or more than the per capita annual income in nearby Nondalton ($8,411), where 37 percent of families are below the poverty line. The lodge prices don’t faze Hayes, who owns a hosiery mill in North Carolina. His grandfather was textile magnate Charles Cannon of Cannon towels and sheets fame.
Kraft has been fighting to preserve his lodges’ privacy by stopping the Pebble Mine, whose site is about 65 miles from his nearest lodge. Kraft founded and funded the Bristol Bay Alliance in 2004 for this purpose. He also became a project director for Trout Unlimited’s Alaska chapter in 2005. And David E. Sandlin, half-owner of the lodges with Kraft, is an old schoolmate of Hayes at North Carolina’s Duke University — they were two years apart.
It seems that it is often the case that the ‘green’ movement is motivated more by the personal interests of the well-to-do than by any real concern for the environment. It certainly doesn’t seem to be motivated by what is best for the country and the people.
Help stop this insanity. Take action! Send a letter to your Representative here.
More at: Big Dogs House, Lonely Conservative
Alaska Attorney General agrees EPA unlawfully expanding its powers
| May 3, 2012 | Posted by Admin under Issues, Mining |
Alaska Attorney General Michael Geraghty
Count Alaska Attorney General Michael Geraghty in the chorus of voices decrying the bullying tactics of the EPA in its efforts to shut down an important resource project before it’s even had the chance to apply for permits.
Geraghty wrote in a March letter to Dennis McLerran, Regional Administrator of EPA Region X, “We believe that EPA’s actions in using the Watershed assessment to address the pending petition are unlawfully preemptive, premature, arbitrary, capricious and vague.”
Legal Newsline reports:
EPA’s watershed assessment effort reaches well beyond any process or authority contemplated by the [Clean Water Act]…
…it conflicts with federal and state law, lacks scientific credibility and violates state and private mineral rights…
Various federal judges – including Supreme Court Justices – have described the EPA’s conduct as “outrageous” or “exceeding its authority.”
The Pebble Mine project continues to be under threat from this unconstitutional expansion of power by the EPA. You can take action via Resourceful Earth by sending a letter to your Representative and Senators telling them to stop the EPA and their bullying tactics here.
For further reading:
Alaska AG says EPA’s actions ‘unlawful’ (Legal Newsline)
Obama’s “None Of The Above” Energy Policy (Wizbang Blog)
Big Green pushes for EPA power grab to stop Pebble Mine (Washington Examiner)
