Finally, EPA Is Reined In.
Now is time for our U.S. senators to push Range mining projects.
Mesabi Daily News Editorial - 09/04/11
President Barack Obama made a common sense decision on Friday to
rein in the Environmental Protection Agency’s penchant for excessive regulation.
The president nixed a planned anti-smog, clean-air regulation that
would have been a major job-killer. Even the agency’s own scientific advisors had calculated imposing the regulation would tag businesses with a $90 billion a year price tag.
We are extremely pleased that the president — although reluctantly — finally decided that his regulatory positions are
harming the nation’s economy.
The announcement by the Obama Administration to cancel the EPA regulation could not have been timed better for the nation to fully understand just how damaging the EPA can be to the country when it is allowed to run roughshod over businesses, unions,
workers and communities.
Just hours prior to release of the president’s decision a report showed that unemployment remained stuck in August at 9.1 percent
and essentially no jobs were added that month. Translated: The
economy is ready to shift from neutral to reverse.
We would hope that Minnesota’s Democratic U.S. Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken would use any influence they have
with the president to get him on board with copper/nickel/precious
metals mining projects on the East Range. We have urged they do so in the past. And now is the perfect time for them to actually,
and publicly, to make that push.
MiningMinnesota Executive Director Frank Ongaro summarized the
situation with nonferrous mining in the state perfectly at a
town hall meeting on economic development with Lt. Gov. Yvonne
Prettner Solon and other state officials last Monday.
He said: “We are prepared and ready to create jobs like no other
industry in the state,” he said of the hundreds and even thousands of permanent jobs that nonferrous mining would bring to the area. And that’s not even counting the thousands more of spin-off jobs and the millions of construction hours that would result.
Both U.S. senators have said they support the PolyMet copper/nickel/precious metals project, which is the farthest along of the several nonferrous ventures. But we need a lot more than just words in Washington.
We need vibrant advocacy. We need strong action. The two Democratic senators should emphasize with the administration that one of the richest veins of nonferrous metals is on Minnesota’s Iron Range. And those metals are needed to fuel the president’s beloved “green economy.”
There should be no more dilly-dallying. Preservationists are
going to oppose these projects, even though they will clearly meet
state and federal environmental standards. It’s now time for Democratic leaders to stand up to their rigid resistance and stand
behind American workers and their families.
Mr. President, you want jobs? We have hundreds and thousands of them ready to go in Minnesota.
