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Rosemont Copper submitted its proposal for the project in 2007 with hopes that the permitting process would be long concluded by now, especially given that it would provide a boon to the ailing local economy. Yet, it took until this summer – four years later – for the U.S. Forest Service to issue its preliminary Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), which lead the Inside Tucson Business editorial board to lament in June that “a process that was supposed to take a year to 18 months has taken four years.”

In fact, according to a recent Behre Dolbear report, the U.S. has the worst-in-the-world ranking among mining nations when it comes to permitting times. Much of this fact is owed to the so-called “not in my backyard” mentality, which is morphing more and more into a dangerous form of environmental imperialism, to which, as a nation, we can’t afford to succumb.

According to the USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries, most of the world’s copper is mined in Chile, Peru, and China. The U.S. ranks fourth, but domestic mine production in 2010 declined by about 5 percent.If for some reason, the U.S. were to simply stop copper mining today, Chile, Peru, the Philippines or Australia, all of which house known prospects, might be able to fill that void and step up supply.  Demand might also be met through mines in Russia, Angola, Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, or China.  While reserves exist in Pakistan and Iran as well, all of the latter group – with the exception of Pakistan, which is rated “partly free” – are rated “not free” in the current Freedom House “Freedom in the World Survey.” Consequently, while the world copper market does offer choices, we may find many of those choices unpalatable from a policy perspective.

Be sure to check out our new microsite at www.coppermatters.org, and watch for more copper-related updates on Twitter and Facebook throughout October.