When the U.S. Department of the Interior derailed the
Crown Jewel gold mine on March 25 with a close reading of the 1872
Mining Law, grassroots activists who’d battled the mine for seven
years thought the news was too good to be true. They were
right.
Just weeks after Interior stiff-armed the
Crown Jewel in north-central Washington state, the industry slipped
a rider through Congress overturning the government’s
ruling.
The mining industry accomplished this
with the help of Washington Sen. Slade Gorton, R, who attached the
rider to an emergency spending bill that included funding for the
war in Kosovo and Honduran hurricane victims.
The
rider exempted the gold mine in Washington state from Interior’s
new regulations (HCN, 5/24/99). President Bill Clinton signed the
bill on May 21, acknowledging that it was laden with troublesome
riders. Surprisingly, Sen. Gorton voted against the bill containing
his rider because, he said, he opposes the war in Kosovo. In
political circles, Gorton’s move is considered a crafty but not
unusual legislative ploy.
“That’s the insider’s
game of legislating,” says David Olson, a University of Washington
political scientist.
The mining industry says the
rider simply reversed an unfair ruling issued by Interior in March.
The Department of the Interior had enforced a provision in the
archaic 1872 Mining Law that limits the amount of mining waste that
can be dumped on public lands.
“Sen. Gorton and
the Congress was absolutely justified in using the emergency
appropriations rider to right that wrong,” says Laura Skaer of the
Northwest Mining Association.
For now, the mine’s
opponents are back to their original tactics. Together, the
Colville Confederated Tribes and the Okanogan Highlands Alliance
have three lawsuits pending in state and federal courts; they
promise to tie up the mine in litigation for several years, if
necessary.
“These are just prize fights,” says
Roger Flynn of the Western Mining Action Project, which represents
the grassroots Okanogan alliance. “We won a round, they won a
round, but we’re still standing.” – Dustin Solberg
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Miners sneak a rider onto an appropriation for war.
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