Joe Biden’s on a roll. After banning uranium mining in Arizona, the president’s Department of the Interior announced a proposal to ban mining and oil-drilling in northern New Mexico for 50 years.
DOI’s proposal will federalize 4,000 acres of “sacred Tribal lands” and promote their “scenic integrity, cultural importance, recreational values, and wildlife habitat connectivity.” The specific land Biden is looking to “protect” contains the some of the state’s largest gravel mines. Not to mention, New Mexico has vast copper, silver, and lead deposits.
The more valuable resources Biden cuts off, the longer the U.S. remains dependent on China and other foreign entities for minerals. America can’t achieve energy or mineral independence anytime soon, and federal initiatives to ban mining certainly don’t help U.S. industry.
Spencer Brown writes in Townhall:
In addition to the direct cost to American energy security and independence from Biden’s ever-expanding restrictions, abdicating energy and resource dominance means increased incentive for other countries to exploit their people to produce more of limited materials, such as those needed in electric vehicle supply chains.
“Resources, including minerals, will come out of the ground to improve the lives of people everywhere,” explained Competitive Enterprise Institute President and CEO Kent Lassman. “We can do that in America, responsibly, with sensible law bound safeguards or we can rely on child slave labor from abroad,” he added. “The latest move by the president once again gives our future away to radical political demands instead of doing the hard work of sensible energy policy.”
Why Biden continues to lament reliance on foreign powers for our energy goals, while simultaneously making domestic mining operations more difficult, is beyond comprehension. Blanket mining bans aren’t “land protection,” not now that the U.S. has safe, effective mining strategies. Call such bans what they are: victories for America’s adversaries.