Pro-mining budget bill awaits President Obama’s signature

On a 56-40 vote late Saturday, the U.S. Senate passed a $1.1 trillion spending package which will fund most of the federal government until September 2015. The measure now awaits the president’s signature. The Senate turmoil and fighting reaped some benefits for mining as a rider imposing a one-year ban on new Endangered Species Act protection for the sage grouse survived in the “omnibus bill”. The rider was introduced by Rep. Mark Amodei, R-Nevada, a former president of the Nevada Mining Association. Nevertheless, Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, the incoming chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, remarked last week that “one year is not enough to find out the viability of the efficacy of programs that are out there.” Meanwhile, the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service, which manage most of the sage grouse habitat, will continue to revise 100 land-use plans covering 67 million acres in 11 western states to protect and restore sage grouse habitat, which is generally sage brush habitat. The omnibus spending bill allocates $15 million to the BLM to support state conservation plans that promote sustainable sage-grouse populations “through conservation of sensitive habitat and to avoid an Endangered Species Act listing designation of the species.” The BLM is already deferring oil and gas leasing on millions of acres of public lands...The rider also blocks the Army Corps of Engineers from moving forward on any rules that would redefine fill material under the Clean Water Act, which Republicans charge would hurt coal mining operations. Also surviving in the appropriations bill is a policy rider that would prohibit the Corps of Engineers from moving ahead on their “Waters of the U.S.” proposed rule that was released for comment by the Corps and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in April...more