The Trump 2.0 administration is possessed by a lust for minerals. Trump’s latest critical minerals edict, Immediate Measures to Increase American Mineral Production, appeared in mid-March. It’s part of a barrage of actions to facilitate even easier mining corporation pillage of public lands than currently exists under the US’s 1872 Mining Law.

The Center for Western Priorities statement details how this order expanded critical minerals to include “uranium, copper, potash, gold, and any other element, compound or material as determined by the Chair of the National Energy Dominance Council NEDC. NEDC was “made up by President Trump to do his bidding on energy and minerals issues and is not accountable to Congress or to the public. The EO seeks to give Burgum, at his own discretion or at Trump’s direction, the power to declare any substance to be a mineral eligible for special treatment”.

The order requires federal agencies to consort with miners, work to nix the Rosemont court ruling that limited mine waste rock dumping on federal land, give priority to mining over other uses of public lands (so much for multiple abuse), and applies the Defense Production Act to allow mineral processing on military bases.

Alarmingly, it also makes a move toward privatization of public lands:

“The EO directs the secretaries of all federal land management agencies to identify as many sites as possible that may be suitable for private commercial mineral production, and to enter into extended use leases with private companies for mineral production … This starts the process of giving away national public lands to private mining companies to exploit and profit from …”.

This would mean privatizing public land and turning it over to foreign mining corporations. Many big mines are ultimately controlled by foreign companies, who spin off US fronts to get US tax breaks, gigantic loans and other benefits like Canadian Lithium Americas Thacker Pass mine has gotten via its US arm, Lithium Nevada, and that Australian Jindalee now seeks through its US spin off Jindalee Lithium. Trump’s frenzied mining-related actions may also expand US mineral grabs and critical minerals colonialism across the globe, to obtain minerals used heavily in waging Wars.

Hot on the heels of Trump’s order, Vale Oregon BLM announced a 5-day comment period for a draft Environmental Assessment (EA) for Jindalee’s McDermitt Exploration project. This crazily short comment period jolted the public into action. BLM received 1500 comments in 5 days. Quietly, late on the 5th day, BLM extended the comment period to the usual 30 days.

The Jindalee project would tear apart a project area of 7200 acres of irreplaceable sagebrush habitat in the northern McDermitt Caldera. Jindalee seeks 30 miles of new routes, 261 drill pad sites, each with a vile drilling wastewater sump, an unspecified number of boreholes, sideways drilling, and additional disturbance zones. There are no alternatives considered other than No Action. Not even one single drill site less, or any increased controls on drilling and bulldozing damage. BLM sidesteps an EIS by pretending there won’t be significant harm inflicted.

Jindalee has already drilled 60 sites here over the past few years under NEPA-less Notice activity. BLM’s mining regulations allow what they define as less than 5 acres of disturbance to be done without any public review. BLM documents reveal that all past Jindalee exploration boreholes have encountered groundwater at an average depth of 179 feet below the surface, with drilling occurring down to 600 ft. Now BLM proposes to astronomically increase the drilling site number and disturbance area (5 acres before, now proposed 100 acres), and would allow deeper drilling down to 800 ft, further threatening perennial water flows and riparian habitats of the area’s small and often intermittent streams.

Maps show how close drill sites and routes are to streams like Mine Creek (named for an old mercury mine with a pollution legacy) and Payne Creek. The mainstem of McDermitt Creek, a stream system targeted for Lahontan Cutthroat Trout recovery, is only a mile from several drill sites. The Jindalee project is less than a mile from the Nevada........

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