Registration is open for our 128^th Annual Meeting - Secure Supply Chains Start with Us, December 4-9, 2022, at the Nugget Casino Resort in Sparks, Nevada. Our ‘easy to follow’ registration buttons (Exhibitors have their own buttons) can be found here. Use this same link to download the most recent brochure and/or a Sponsorship form.

If you are looking for information about our Call for Papers, go to Pages 13 & 14 of the brochure. Be sure to read this before you submit your abstract. Abstracts must include:

The Exhibit Hall is filling up. If you are interested in a booth or core shack, contact Mike Heywood at [email protected] for details. Lists of current exhibitors by Company Name, by Product/Service and by Booth # begins on Page 33 of the brochure.

Registration information for the Student Poster Contest and the Professional Poster Session are on Pages 27 & 28.

Our list of companies and individuals who have become sponsors for this year keeps growing. This month we added Brooks & Nelson, Brown and Caldwell, MRC Recruiters and Sailing Rock Consulting. We want to acknowledge and thank the individuals and companies on the list below who have become sponsors for 2022. Get all the benefits of sponsorship by joining this group and signing up as a sponsor today. 

Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn to access our latest graphics, news articles and engage with the rest of the mining industry. If you are interested in coordinating social media efforts with AEMA, reach out to Kenna O'Neill.

Earlier this year the Biden administration launched an Interagency Working Group (IWG), led by the Department of the Interior, on “reforming hardrock mining laws, regulations and permitting policies.” Executive director Mark Compton participated in the kickoff meeting of the IWG at the White House last month, and AEMA continues to proactively engage the agencies involved in the process.

In conjunction with AEMA’s quarterly Board of Trustees meeting, we met with the IWG on June 17. We stressed the importance of self-initiation and security of tenure, outlining the advantages of the claim location system versus a leasing system for hardock minerals. We also emphasized the need to more efficiently permit mining projects, and highlighted the positive work being done by many in the industry to proactively and meaningfully engage tribes.

Addressing abandoned mine lands is a focus of the IWG, so we took the opportunity to promote Good Samaritan legislation like S. 3571 to address liability issues that are barriers to AML remediation.

Many thanks to Ron Rimelman with NOVAGOLD Resources, Jeff Parshley with SRK Consulting, Lori Lusty with Simplot, Matt Bingham with Hudbay Minerals, Carolyn McIntosh with Squire Patton Boggs, Adam Hawkins with Global External Relations, and Connie Rogers with Terra Law Group for leading the discussion, and all AEMA members for lending their expertise.

AEMA will be heavily engaged in further discussions with the IWG departments and agencies, as well as working with our members to submit written comments to the DOI’s Request for Information by the end of July.

On June 7, the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources Subcommittee on Public Lands, Forests and Mining held a hearing on a number of bills. Of particular interest was S.387, the Grand Canyon Protection Act, sponsored by Sen. Kyrsten Sinema. In addition to the buffer that already exists around Grand Canyon National Park, S.387 would withdraw from mineral entry an additional 1 million acres. The withdrawal would take in a number of uranium mines and known deposits, in spite of the growing U.S. and global dependence on Russian uranium, and a recent USGS report that showed that the nine uranium mines that have operated in northern Arizona since modern environmental regulations took effect have caused no adverse environmental or health impacts. AEMA joined NMA, Arizona Mining Association, Arizona Rock Products Association, Colorado Mining Association, Utah Mining Association, Women’s Mining Coalition and Wyoming Mining Association in signing a letter addressed to chairs and ranking members of the full committee and subcommittee, expressing our concerns and opposition to S.387. Read the letter here.

When Department of Interior published the Notice of Application for Withdrawal in the Federal Register on April 29, 2021, it began the two-year segregation period in which DOI must analyze the withdrawal request and make a decision. The Draft EA is part of that analysis. You can read the Draft EA and its appendices here, and submit comments via e-mail here. Please address your comments to Amy Keith, NASA Headquarters Environmental Management Division. The comment deadline this time around is July 23, 2022.

The EPA recently filed their brief in the Clean Water Act case of Sackett v. EPA, currently pending before the Supreme Court. EPA argues that Justice Kennedy’s “significant-nexus test,” established in the 2006 Rapanos decision, is the proper test for whether a wetland falls under the jurisdiction of the Clean Water Act. The significant-nexus test is generally broader than the more tightly-drawn “continuous-surface-connection test” written by the four-justice plurality in Rapanos. The Sacketts argue that Scalia’s continuous-surface-connection is the proper test. Interestingly, EPA’s brief notes that Chief Justice John Roberts was part of the plurality opinion in Rapanos, in which he suggested the agencies could have settled the issue of CWA jurisdiction through notice-and-comment rulemaking. Some Supreme Court watchers have suggested that the intervening 16 years of watching EPA repeatedly swing and miss with notice-and-comment rulemakings has worn out Roberts’ patience. Read the full EPA brief here.

Earlier this month, EPA published a proposed rule in the Federal Register which would make changes to the Clean Water Act’s Section 401 Rule. As many of you know, Section 401 requires federal agencies such as EPA or the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (the Corps) to secure certification or a waiver from states or tribes before issuing a Section 404 discharge permit for a project. However, in recent decades, states and tribes had begun to abuse this authority, delaying or rejecting 401 certification for peripheral or unrelated reasons. EPA promulgated a rule in 2020 that sought to rein in these abuses by limiting Section 401 reviews to issues directly related to the permit, and established timelines for review and action.

EPA’s proposed rule is likely to remove or blur some of these limitations. For instance, the proposal would allow certifying authorities to evaluate and place conditions on the activity as a whole, which opens the door to delay or denial of a permit for peripheral or unrelated reasons. The proposal also allows states and tribes to participate in defining a “reasonable time” to conduct 401 reviews, and some experts argue that the proposed rule could give states and tribes the authority to protect all their water under Section 401, not just waters considered “navigable” or “waters of the U.S.” (WOTUS). AEMA will submit comments on this proposed rule, and we encourage you to do so as well. EPA is accepting comments until August 8, and will hold several outreach sessions for the public and project proponents. Visit EPA’s website for more information on the proposal, upcoming outreach sessions, and instructions for submitting comments here.

Although little mining takes place in Iowa, Senator Ernst is a combat veteran who retired as a Lieutenant Colonel after 23 years in the Iowa Army National Guard. Read more about the HARD ROCK Act here.

Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-WA), chairman of the Congressional Western Caucus, teamed up with Rep. August Pfluger (R-TX), Henry Cuellar (D-TX) and Vicente Gonzalez (D-TX) to introduce the “Critical Minerals Classification Improvement Act” on June 13. This bipartisan bill would remove the “non-fuel” requirement from the critical mineral definition, so dual-purpose minerals like uranium could be designated as critical minerals. The bill also requires the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to reevaluate the current critical minerals list, finalized and released in 2022, to make any necessary revisions. When the 2022 list was published, USGS argued that uranium had to be removed because the Energy Act of 2020 prohibited fuel minerals from being defined as critical. AEMA supports the bipartisan effort to restore uranium to the critical minerals list. Read the press release on the bill here.

AEMA was invited to speak at the Rocky Mountain Mining Institute’s 118^th Conference and Annual Meeting in Snowmass, Colorado. Executive director Mark Compton shared progress being made on the development of Good Samaritan legislation to facilitate cleanup of abandoned hardrock mines by providing comprehensive liability protections for anyone who wants to voluntarily mitigate and reclaim an AML.

AEMA's Elko Hospitality Nite a Success

Rep. Burgess Owens (R-UT) and Rep. Jim Costa (D-CA) recently introduced companion legislation in the House of Representatives to the Mining Schools Act of 2022. As you may recall, the Mining Schools Act would authorize $10 million annually through 2030, directing the Department of Energy to establish a grant program at mining colleges and universities in the United States. The grant programs would help these mining schools attract and train more students in mining engineering, geology, and other fields related to mining. Although demand for minerals is rapidly increasing, the industry is experiencing difficulty filling vacancies. AEMA offers our gratitude to Reps. Owens and Costa for sponsoring this important piece of legislation in the House.

AEMA would like to personally congratulate former Women's Mining Coalition Coordinator, Emily Arthun on her new position as Chief Executive Officer for the American Coal Council. Emily has been a major advocate for the industry and a great partner to us.

The WMC is looking to hire a Manager to fill her role. Additional details including a job description and qualification list can be found here. Applications should be emailed to [email protected].

Make sure to update your information in your Member Profile. This will update our records as well as the online Membership Database that is available under Member Resources.

Not sure how to update? Check out our guide here: Updating Your Member Profile