Nevada

Amodei’s mining bill fails to pass Republican-controlled House • Nevada Current

Published

2 years ago

May 3, 2024

Amodei’s mining bill fails to pass Republican-controlled House • Nevada Current

Nevada’s lone congressional Republican suffered a blow this week after six members of his own party joined Democrats to block a bill he authored to address a court ruling adopting a stricter interpretation of the 150-year-old General Mining Law.

Mining developers looking to extract minerals in Nevada are grappling with the aftermath of a 2022 U.S. appellate court ruling that essentially restricted mining companies from dumping waste on federal lands.

While federal mining law allows companies to mine on federal land where economically valuable minerals are present, the federal court decision ruled that companies are not guaranteed the right to use adjacent federal land without valuable minerals for related purposes – such as waste rock disposal or running power lines.

The Mining Regulatory Clarity Act of 2024 — introduced by Nevada Republican Rep. Mark Amodei —would respond to the ruling by removing a provision in an 1872 federal mining law that mining companies must show a mineral deposit is present before building roads and other support facilities at a potential site.

However, the legislation died on the House floor Wednesday after a 210-206 vote to send the bill back to the House Natural Resources committee. Amodei’s office did not respond in time for publication.

Six hard-line Republicans — Andy Biggs and Eli Crane of Arizona, Dan Bishop of North Carolina, Bob Good of Virginia and Matt Gaetz and Anna Paulina Luna of Florida — voted with all Democrats to block the bill.

During floor debate, Republicans argued the bill was needed to clarify a 2022 federal appeals court decision that blocked approvals for mining support facilities at an Arizona copper mine.

“The decision limited the ability of the Forest Service to approve necessary mining support facilities and activity, which is necessary for mining operations,” Minnesota Republican Pete Stauber said Wednesday. The decision “put virtually every new domestic mining project in jeopardy.”

In Nevada, the appellate court ruling has the potential to send mining projects — years in the making — back to square one.

In the case of a planned molybdenum mine by Nevada-based developer Eureka Moly LLC, a district court judge vacated the 2019 Bureau of Land Management’s approval of the project after ruling the developer did not have the right to dump waste rock on federal land without valuable mineral deposits.

The new stricter interpretation of the 150-year-old General Mining Law, also affected what may potentially become the largest lithium mine in the United States, the Thacker Pass project south of the Nevada-Oregon border. Last year, a district judge cited the Arizona ruling when determining that federal land managers violated federal law when they approved the mine developer’s plan to bury 1,300 acres of public land under waste rock.

Prior to the court decision adopting a stricter interpretation of the 150-year-old General Mining Law, mining companies had been dumping mining waste on neighboring federal lands without issue for decades.

House Democrats argued Amodei’s bill would only benefit the mining industry by making it easier for companies to develop sites without documented mineral deposits. On the House floor, Democrats said the bill would give too much power to — and provide too little accountability for — mining companies that already work in a favorable regulatory environment.

New Mexico Democrat Melanie Stansbury said mining companies operate under an 1872 law that provides nearly unfettered access to lands that other extractive industries “could only dream of.”

Congress should be improving environmental protections to the 19th-century law, but the bill considered Wednesday would only weaken existing protections, she said.

“This bill removes the one frail safeguard that we have,” she said. “Under this bill, any American — or frankly any American subsidiary of a foreign company, including those that are located in adversarial countries — can put four stakes in the ground and on open public lands pay less than $10 an acre per year to have exclusive rights to that land, forever. Forever. This bill would create a free-for-all on our public lands.”

Both Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. Senate have described the federal appeals court decision as “a significant departure from long-held mining practices.” Last year, Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto has proposed a similar bill — the Mining Regulatory Clarity Act — that would make it legal to use part of a mining claim for mining related purposes on land without valuable minerals, including waste rock disposal.

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Nevada

Bill by Nevada’s Amodei to ramp up mining on public land passes House

Published

7 hours ago

December 19, 2025

Press Room

Bill by Nevada’s Amodei to ramp up mining on public land passes House

The U.S. House passed a bill Thursday put forward by Nevada Rep. Mark Amodei that would reinvigorate mining activity on federal lands.

Amodei, a Republican who represents the state’s top half, described the bill as strengthening the nation’s mineral supply chain and helping to counter China’s dominance with minerals.

“Western states are sitting on a wealth of resources and a critical opportunity to break our dangerous reliance on foreign adversaries while powering our own economy,” he said in a statement.

“The Mining Regulatory Clarity Act … gives domestic mining operations the certainty they need to compete aggressively and win.”

The bill passed 219 to 198. Republicans voted 210 in favor, 1 opposed and 9 not voting. Democrats voted 9 in favor, 197 opposed and 7 not voting. It was one of the House’s last actions before adjourning for the year.

Nevada delegation split on mining bill

Amodei was joined by Las Vegas Democrat Steven Horsford, who co-sponsored the bill in the House.

“Streamlining the hardrock mining process will create good jobs and strengthen our energy sector,” Horsford said.

The state’s other two House members — Democrats Susie Lee and Dina Titus — voted in opposition.

Titus spokesperson Dick Cooper told the Reno Gazette Journal that the congresswoman voted no because the bill would allow for increased dumping of mine waste on public lands.

“It would also allow mining companies to gain permanent rights to occupy public lands and preclude other uses including recreational and cultural uses,” he added.

It now heads to the Senate, where Nevada Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto will work to get it passed.

“This bill is common sense, and it’s key for communities across Nevada that count on mining for their livelihoods,” Cortez Masto said in a social media post.

Sen. Jacky Rosen of Nevada, a Democrat, also supports it. She helped introduce the Senate companion version of Amodei’s bill.

“Nevada is one of the few places in the United States with an abundance of critical minerals and a robust hardrock mining industry,” Rosen said. “The responsible mining of these minerals supports thousands of jobs and will help to strengthen our domestic manufacturing and clean energy supply chains.”

What does Amodei’s Mining Regulatory Clarity Act do?

The bill is a response to a 2022 decision by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals involving the Rosemont Copper Mine in Arizona.

The decision basically meant that mining companies must prove valuable minerals exist on a piece of land before they can dump waste material on it. Called the “mineral validity” requirement, it disrupted decades of precedent.

Amodei’s bill would reverse that and allow the practice to resume of using nearby land for mining waste without proving the land contains commercial deposits — something mining companies say is essential for operating on federal land.

“This legislation ensures the fundamental ability to conduct responsible mining activities on federal lands,” said Rich Nolan, National Mining Association president and CEO, in a statement. “Regulatory certainty, or the lack thereof, will either underpin or undermine efforts to decisively confront our minerals crisis.”

The bill also creates an “Abandoned Hardrock Mine Fund.” Some fees related to mining claims will be used to fund a program to inventory, assess and clean up abandoned hardrock mines.

Environmental groups blast House vote on Mining Regulatory Clarity Act

Some environmental groups campaigned against the bill and described it as choosing corporate interests over people, Native Americans’ rights and the environment.

Lauren Pagel, policy director for Earthworks, said the bill “will remove already-scarce protections for natural resources and sacred cultural sites in U.S. mining law.”

The Center for Biological Diversity said the bill surrenders public lands to mining conglomerates.

“The so-called Mining Regulatory Clarity Act would bypass the validity requirement and grant mining companies — including foreign companies — the statutory right to permanently occupy and indiscriminately use public lands upon approval of a company’s self-written plan of operations,” said the nonprofit conservation organization in an online post.

Mark Robison is the state politics reporter for the Reno Gazette Journal, with occasional forays into other topics. Email comments to mrobison@rgj.com or comment on Mark’s Greater Reno Facebook page.

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California school district near Nevada caught up in a dispute over transgender athlete policies – WTOP News

Published

20 hours ago

December 19, 2025

Press Room

California school district near Nevada caught up in a dispute over transgender athlete policies – WTOP News

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A Lake Tahoe school district is caught between California and Nevada’s competing policies on transgender student…

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A Lake Tahoe school district is caught between California and Nevada’s competing policies on transgender student athletes, a dispute that’s poised to reorder where the district’s students compete.

High schools in California’s Tahoe-Truckee Unified School District, set in a mountainous, snow-prone area near the border with Nevada, have for decades competed in the Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association, or NIAA. That has allowed sports teams to avoid making frequent and potentially hazardous trips in poor winter weather to competitions farther to the west, district officials say.

But the Nevada association voted in April to require students in sex-segregated sports programs to play on teams that align with their sex assigned at birth — a departure from a previous approach allowing individual schools to set their own standards. The move raised questions for how the Tahoe-Truckee district would remain in the Nevada association while following California law, which says students can play on teams consistent with their gender identity.

Now, California’s Department of Education is requiring the district to join the California Interscholastic Federation, or CIF, by the start of next school year.

District Superintendent Kerstin Kramer said at a school board meeting this week the demand puts the district in a difficult position.

“No matter which authority we’re complying with we are leaving students behind,” she said. “So we have been stuck.”

There are currently no known transgender student athletes competing in high school sports in Tahoe-Truckee Unified, district officials told the education department in a letter. But a former student filed a complaint with the state in June after the board decided to stick with Nevada athletics, Kramer said.

A national debate

The dispute comes amid a nationwide battle over the rights of transgender youth in which states have restricted transgender girls from participating on girls sports teams, barred gender-affirming surgeries for minors and required parents to be notified if a child changes their pronouns at school. At least 24 states have laws barring transgender women and girls from participating in certain sports competitions. Some of the policies have been blocked in court.

Meanwhile, California is fighting the Trump administration in court over transgender athlete policies. President Donald Trump issued an executive order in February aimed at banning transgender women and girls from participating in female athletics. The U.S. Justice Department also sued the California Department of Education in July, alleging its policy allowing transgender girls to compete on girls sports teams violates federal law.

And Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has signedlaws aimed at protecting trans youth, shocked party allies in March when he raised questions on his podcast about the fairness of trans women and girls competing against other female athletes. His office did not comment on the Tahoe-Truckee Unified case, but said Newsom “rejects the right wing’s cynical attempt to weaponize this debate as an excuse to vilify individual kids.”

The state education department said in a statement that all California districts must follow the law regardless of which state’s athletic association they join.

At the Tahoe-Truckee school board meeting this week, some parents and one student said they opposed allowing trans girls to participate on girls teams.

“I don’t see how it would be fair for female athletes to compete against a biological male because they’re stronger, they’re taller, they’re faster,” said Ava Cockrum, a Truckee High School student on the track and field team. “It’s just not fair.”

But Beth Curtis, a civil rights attorney whose children attended schools in Tahoe-Truckee Unified, said the district should fight NIAA from implementing its trans student athlete policy as violating the Nevada Constitution.

Asking for more time

The district has drafted a plan to transition to the California federation by the 2028-2029 school year after state officials ordered it to take action. It’s awaiting the education department’s response.

Curtis doesn’t think the state will allow the district to delay joining CIF, the California federation, another two years, noting the education department is vigorously defending its law against the Trump administration: “They’re not going to fight to uphold the law and say to you at the same time, ‘Okay, you can ignore it for two years.’”

Tahoe-Truckee Unified’s two high schools with athletic programs, which are located about 6,000 feet (1,800 meters) in elevation, compete against both California and Nevada teams in nearby mountain towns — and others more distant and closer to sea level. If the district moves to the California federation, Tahoe-Truckee Unified teams may have to travel more often in bad weather across a risky mountain pass — about 7,000 feet (2,100 meters) in elevation above a lake — to reach schools farther from state lines.

Coleville High School, a small California school in the Eastern Sierra near the Nevada border, has also long been a member of the Nevada association, said Heidi Torix, superintendent of the Eastern Sierra Unified School District. The school abides by California law regarding transgender athletes, Torix said.

The school has not been similarly ordered by California to switch where it competes. The California Department of Education did not respond to requests for comment on whether it’s warned any other districts not in the California federation about possible noncompliance with state policy.

State Assemblymember Heather Hadwick, a Republican representing a large region of northern California bordering Nevada, said Tahoe-Truckee Unified shouldn’t be forced to join the CIF.

“I urge California Department of Education and state officials to fully consider the real-world consequences of this decision—not in theory, but on the ground—where weather, geography, and safety matter,” Hadwick said.

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Proactive power outage slated for northwestern Nevada

Published

1 day ago

December 18, 2025

Press Room

Proactive power outage slated for northwestern Nevada

RENO, Nev. (KOLO) – Because of heightened fire weather conditions forecast for northwestern Nevada, a proactive outage is slated for Friday, Dec. 19, in Carson City, Clear Creek, Jack’s Valley, Genoa and Glenbrook from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m., according to a NV Energy news release.

The outage would affect about 715 customers, the release said.

During a Public Safety Outage Management event, the utility proactively de-energizes power for customers in high-risk zones to help protect the community and environment from wildfires, the release said.

If weather conditions change, the potential proactive outage will be adjusted or cancelled.

Customers potentially impacted have been notified via phone, text messages and email.

NV Energy will continue to monitor conditions and provide updates.

The outage timeframe includes the duration of the weather event and an estimated time for crews to inspect the lines for damage, vegetation or debris to begin safely restoring power.

The restoration time may change based on weather conditions or if repairs to equipment need to be made.

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