Meeting for the first time, a Senate mining committee began looking at ways on Tuesday to streamline mining regulations, with the chairman of the panel saying a bill could be introduced before the end of year.

Mining has attracted attention this fall as Gov Scott Walker and Republicans have pushed a pro jobs agenda while Gogebic Taconite, based in Hurley, is proposing to build a USD 1.5 billion open pit iron ore mine in Ashland and Iron counties that the company said would employ 700 workers.

But the company said that changes are needed to the state’s regulatory process to provide Gogebic and other mining companies more certainty about Wisconsin’s permitting process.

Some themes that emerged during an informational hearing before the Senate Select Committee on Mining Jobs and from a legislative memo provided to the senators were:

1. Republicans and Democrats on the panel agreed that some changes are needed in state law to update mining regulations. But what those changes would be is far from clear, with Republicans generally inclined toward cutting regulations.

2. Lawmakers talked about simplifying the review process during the exploration phase of a mining project; making distinctions between iron ore mining and other kinds of metallic mining and removing certain parts of the process altogether, such a court-like proceeding before a decision to approve a mine was challenged in state court.

3. The Department of Natural Resources could be given specific timelines to do their work. But it’s difficult to make direct comparisons with the deadlines used in Minnesota and Michigan because regulators in those states have approved plans for expansions of mines - not new mines.

4. Any changes in state law could conflict with federal and tribal authority. The Army Corps of Engineers is likely to play a role in wetlands regulation and the Bad River band of Lake Superior Chippewa has recently been given authority to by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to set water quality standards. That could affect Gogebic’s mining operations upstream.

The committee chairman, Sen Neal Kedzie (R-Elkhorn) said that he wanted to hold more hearings before the end of the year, but he said that he was reluctant to set new dates until a bill was written.

(Sourced from www.jsonline.com)