Eco-wackos/Warmists: we totally want all sorts of green energy and electric vehicles
Manufacturers/government: we need to mine lots of precious metals and such like lithium
Eco-wackos/Warmists: nope, we cannot allow that, we’ll sue
9th Circuit denies bid by environmentalists and tribes to block Nevada lithium mine
The latest bid by conservationists and tribal leaders to block construction of a huge lithium mine already in the works along the Nevada-Oregon line was denied by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday.
A three-panel judge of the San Francisco-based appellate court rejected a half-dozen legal arguments the opponents had put forth in their appeal seeking to overturn federal land managers’ approval of one of the projects at the forefront of President Joe Biden’s plans to combat climate change.
The critics have been fighting it in federal court for two years. They claim the open-pit mine, as deep as the length of a football field, will violate multiple environmental laws and destroy lands tribal members consider sacred because they say dozens of their ancestors were massacred there in 1865.
Lithium Nevada Corp.’s mine at Thacker Pass, 200 miles (320 kilometers) northeast of Reno, has pitted environmentalists and Native Americans against Biden’s efforts to accelerate the transition from fossil fuels to cleaner, renewable energy sources. The mine would involve extraction of the silvery-white metal used in electric vehicle batteries.
How about a nice payout for the tribes?
On Monday, the judges didn’t specifically address the claims that the project fails to comply with a new opinion the 9th Circuit issued last year that blocked a copper mine in Arizona based on a more stringent interpretation of the 1872 Mining Law regarding the use of neighboring lands to dispose of waste.
Rather, they more generally deferred to the expertise of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which approved the mine in 2021, and the decision by U.S. District Judge Miranda Du in Reno earlier this year to allow construction to go forward even though she concluded the mine was not in complete compliance with the new interpretation of the Civil War-era mining law.
It’s rather humorous, and ironic, that to create all these “green” technologies the land and sea must be destroyed, eh? Heck, vast parts of Nevada are perfect for strip mining, as there is nothing there.
Read: Huh: 9th Circuit Shuts Down Bid To Block Lithium Mine »