American Security Depends on a Strong Domestic Mining Industry
By The Publisher Alaska miners have a reputation for staying the course despite challenges, headwinds and difficulties. Which is a good thing, given the way 2022 is beginning after two years of disruption and chaos from a worldwide pandemic and an abrupt reversal in Federal policies that could put the brakes on several years of progress in Alaska mining projects. And we thought 2021 was a year of disruption. Let’s take stock. As this goes to press, the Russian invasion of Ukraine is grinding into a nightmare of urban warfare, civilian casualties and millions of refugees. It is also a shock to the world economy, supply chain, financial markets and national loyalties unlike we’ve seen in two generations, if ever. The immediate impact on Alaskans in general, and miners in particular, is the dramatic rise in the cost of fuel. We are wishing we were paying as little as the national average of $4 or so for regular gas and $5 for diesel. How long that will continue remains to be seen, but expect everything from airplane tickets to produce to cost more, with an ever bigger hit to mining bottom lines, where costs like that are impossible to absorb or pass along. If there’s any hope in such a catastrophic worldwide tragedy, it is that finally, perhaps, America in general and leadership in Washington in particular will wake up and not just understand but embrace the critical need for the United States to be self-sufficient in critical minerals. Just as we need to be self-sufficient in energy, food and just about everything else that keeps our economy and democracy strong. Yet this is not understood by most Americans — whether you wish to assign blame to a generational desire for cheap consumer goods, driven and fed by outsourcing manufacturing to the Pacific Rim, or a naïve inability to understand that responsible resource development is not just possible, but essential. Those of use who were driving in the 1970s remember the wakeup call that came with the Arab oil embargo, when gas tripled in weeks (to $.99) and provided the national commitment to build the Trans Alaska Pipeline. We can only dream that our current situation will give birth to the same national commitment to critical mineral independence. What is clear is that there are real-world tyrants who will gladly invade, seize and conquer other free nations and peoples. This is nothing new, but what is very clear is our United States security, indeed freedom, is dependent on technology and resources we don’t control because we
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aren’t allowed to produce it here. Which is all the more puzzling given the Biden Administration’s double talk, even in the face of this crisis. In a single day last month, the Administration was claiming a commitment to building domestic mining of critical minerals, while on the same day announcing a litany of new restrictions to block the Ambler Project, while making all mining unprofitable, shackled with new regulations and a whole new bureaucracy. Even more troubling is the administration’s commitment that some places will never be developed, never be mined, always be locked up. Sounds like Alaska, doesn’t it? Even to outsiders, this doesn’t make sense. To those working and living in the mining industry, it’s hard not to be discouraged or to wonder if our biggest threat is in or out of the country. So, what we can do, is what we’ve always done — press forward, work together, build and protect our resources — and tell the truth about the critical value of the work we do as Alaska miners. And pray that truth and common sense will prevail. In a decision that adds new uncertainty for development of high-grade copper deposits in northwest Alaska, the U.S. Department of the Interior filed a motion in February to remand the Final Environmental Impact Statement, or FEIS, and suspend right-of-way permits issued across federal lands to the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority for the Ambler Access Project.
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Jeb Baughman Sales Representative Fairbanks Branch
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March 2022 I The Alaska Miner I www.alaskaminers.org
www.alaskaminers.org I The Alaska Miner I March 2022
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