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Earlier this week, ResourcefulEarth.org picked up on our initial calling out of a week-long campaign the environmental Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) Earthworks ran against the mining industry. Read our original post from August 12 here. The site’s follow-up post included a couple of take action items for its community, and we’d like to encourage our supporters to do the same.

Those who support exploring non-fuel mineral resources (that’s us!) deserve to present their factually-based information before the EPA and the Administration. Let’s be the voice of reason before the federal government by knowledgeably explaining that over-regulation is not the answer to providing mining jobs and national security.

Please take a few minutes to send a letter to the EPA on this issue. It is pre-written by the people from Resourceful Earth, and it clearly explains the situation. After taking the action, we would also encourage you to share this letter-writing campaign with your networks.

You may send a letter by email to the EPA Administrator, Lisa Jackson, by clicking here.

How do you break into the headlines these days – with Wall Street reeling, London burning, and carnage in the streets of Syria?

A little hysteria helps.

That’s the tactic employed by Earthworks, an environmental Non-Government Organization (NGO). The group has been running a national campaign this week aimed at pressuring the EPA to provide additional federal regulations to close what they’ve deemed “loopholes” in the Clean Water Act. Their website claims that the bill as it stands now is confusing and allows American mining companies to “dump their toxic mining waste directly into our waters!”

They’ve selected the language “closing loopholes,” but the truth is that Earthworks and its supporters are looking to add layers of federal regulations to the Clean Water Act so that it is nearly impossible for the mining industry to function in the U.S.  The fact that such a move would cripple American jobs and stall economic growth isn’t an issue for Earthworks.

With China exploiting mineral and metal resource shortages, and global demand growing, it’s not a winning argument. Now, I don’t usually get into the “he said, she said” of the environmental movement. But Earthworks’ effort isn’t exactly fact-friendly.

Case in point:  In a June 21 letter from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, the agency’s director, Robert Abbey, was asked how many U.S. mining operations his agency had approved since 1990. His reply? 659.

The BLM leader next answered Sen. Murkowski’s inquiry into the number of U.S. mines that have since been added to the taxpayer-funded Superfund Cleanup list. That number: zero.

Think about it. In the 21 years since 1990, Democrats and Republicans have evenly controlled the White House.  That means, either there’s been an incredibly effective conspiracy spanning the Bush and Clinton years, and into President Obama’s presidency, to hide the mining malpractice Earthworks claims is rampant…

OR… That there’s a lengthy record of responsible mining in the U.S. – which is hardly the type of headline that an NGO like Earthworks is looking for.

Two Alaska mining projects may begin production ahead of schedule thanks to priority permits granted by the U.S. Forest Service. As reported by the website ResourcefulEarth.org, the agency approved exploratory drilling permits for Ucore Rare Metals Inc.’s Bokan Mountain site in Southeast Alaska, which is expected to develop rare earths as well as potentially high [...]

Making national headlines this week, the Elk Creek, Neb. rare earths and niobium prospecting site (we’ve talked about it here and here) may finally be getting the attention it deserves.  The Northwest Mining Association also recently covered this topic on their blog at TheMoreYouDig.com.  With all of this newfound attention, however, comes the larger issue [...]

I recently came across this interesting story from commodityonline.com that discusses Taiwan’s plans to introduce a million-robot army to manufacture key IT components. Robots, of course, have long been seen as a labor-saving innovation, increasing efficiency and quality assurance.  They don’t call in sick, have spats with co-workers, or take long lunches.  But they do, [...]

What does a copper strike in Chile have to do with the debt-deadlock in Washington, D.C.? More than might at first meet the eye, as this Bloomberg piece makes clear, tying the upswing in copper’s price to a strike at Chile’s Escondida Mine added to the dollar’s drop as the debt crisis drags on. How [...]

A handful of countries situated near the top of the world are racing to firm up their territorial claims to untold amounts of oil, natural gas, gold, zinc, copper and other metals. A new piece from the U.K. Guardian highlights this renewed scramble for resource rights beneath the Arctic icecap. I treated this story in [...]

For those who remember Rare Earth as a rock band, life has come full circle: Smarthouse Lifestyle Technology Guide reports today that audio speaker costs are “set to rocket” due to rapidly rising prices for Neodymium-based magnets. Whether rockers- and other music listeners- will pay more to hear their favorite music, or companies will compromise [...]

Placing emphasis on the stated Chinese government’s goal to preserve an important resource from “unqualified” rare earth miners, while at the same time protecting the environment, a China Radio International (CRI) segment earlier this week reports on the recent tax increase on Rare Earths resources.

Molycorp, the leading edge of the U.S. re-entry into Rare Earths production, has acquired a controlling share in Estonia-based Silmet, one of only two rare earths refineries in Europe. The deal will allow Molycorp to double its planned production capacities to roughly 6,000 tons per year.