Wednesday, January 16, 2002
By Henry Lamb© 2002 WorldNetDaily.com
Homeland security only begins at our nation's airports. Lasting security requires a long-term strategy to be self sufficient – secure in our energy supply, in our food supply, and in the supply of resources that fuel our economy. We cannot be secure at home, if our energy, our food and the products that sustain us come from other nations.
As a nation, we have decided that it is more important to preserve wilderness, open space, milk-weed and mud-suckers, than it is to ensure a domestic supply of the resources we need.
Our modern society requires about 75 different minerals for the products we use. At least 60 of these minerals are available in the United States – most on public land, managed by the federal government.
The General Mining Law says that: "mineral deposits in lands belonging to the United States shall be free and open to exploration." The Mining and Mineral Policy Act of 1970 finds that: "it is in the national interest to foster mining [and] domestic mineral resources." The Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 asserts that: "the public lands shall be managed [to recognize] the nation's need for domestic sources of minerals." And The National Materials and Minerals Policy Research and Development Act of 1980 holds that: "the continuing policy of the United States [is] to promote an adequate and stable supply of minerals to maintain national security, economic well-being and industrial production."
Regardless of what these laws say, we are losing – or have already lost – the benefit of our "public" minerals. The Congressional Office of Technical Assessment reported in 1976, that mineral development was "severely" restricted or completely prohibited on nearly 60 percent of federal lands. There is not a more recent assessment, but the situation has worsened, particularly in the last years of the Clinton administration.
In the 1990s, international consultants, Behre-Dolbear & Company, rated mining nations for investors. The United States was dead last among 27 nations, in the time required to open a mine, and in the expense required for the permitting process. It can take as long as 10 years to get a permit to mine, and the cost of the process runs easily into the tens of millions.
Consequently, our nation has seen a 54 percent decline in metal mines in the last decade, a 66 percent decline in investment for exploration in the last five years, and an 88 percent decline in investment for mine development.
Investment – and jobs – are going elsewhere. As they do, America becomes more dependent upon foreign sources for its products, and less secure at home.
Coal is only one of the minerals with which America is blessed. Our 274 billion tons – enough to meet our electricity needs for 250 years – represents the largest known energy source in the world. One-third of this supply is on federal land, but the government virtually controls access to the entire supply.
The energy content of the coal under public land is equal to 16 times the U.S. oil reserves, 1.4 times the Saudi-Arabian reserve, and 4 times the natural gas reserves of both North and South America.
The oil under the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge offers at least 5.7 billion barrels of oil – and perhaps as much as 15 billion – enough to replace all that is now imported from Iraq. Energy and the other minerals we need lie under our open space, and so-called "critical habitat" for bugs and weeds.
Mr. Bush and Mr. Daschle: Make our homeland secure! We need these resources, and the jobs they provide. We cannot be secure at home if we are dependent upon our enemies for the resources we need.
In a recent speech to the Bureau of Land Management, Jack Gerard, president of the National Mining Association, said: "The American mining industry does not now, and never has, wanted to prospect the national park system; we don't want to explore every square mile of the established wildernesses. But we do believe a serious review is appropriate if we are to secure a healthy mining industry in this country."
And, contrary to the drumbeat of extremist environmental organizations, it can be done without "destroying" the environment. We have learned to require a bond from mining operations to guarantee reclamation and environmental protection. We have learned to produce oil with such environmental sensitivity that even the National Audubon Society benefits from its production on their own property. There is no longer any environmental justification for denying the American people access to the wealth of minerals and energy they own.
The Endangered Species Act is being used by lawsuit-hungry, extremist environmental organizations to lock up the land and prevent use of our resources. Jason Shogren, at the University of Michigan, reports that the recovery plan for the spotted owl – a single species – cost 28,000 jobs, with as much as a $33 billion decrease in economic welfare. The report also surveys 23 other recovery plans which cost $700 million over three years. The number of threatened and endangered species have now reached the thousands, and thousands more are awaiting listing.
The effort to protect endangered species not only locks up the land and resources – and thereby jeopardizes our homeland security – it is downright expensive.
It is not a matter of which is more important: homeland security, or bugs and weeds. It is not an either-or situation. We can have both.
Environmental extremists, inside and outside of government, have preached that environmental destruction will result from resource use. This is simply not true. It is time to rise above environmental hyperbole, and take a cold hard look at reality. We must take care of our environment, but we cannot – and must not – let a manufactured reverence for the environment stand in the way of our long-term homeland security.
Henry Lamb is the executive vice president of the Environmental Conservation Organization and chairman of Sovereignty International.
