Southeast Arizona Land Exchange and Conservation Act of 2011

Floor Speech

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Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you, Mr. Grijalva, and thank you very much for our friends from Arizona.

Let me just tell you, my family has been in mining since the 1860s, gold mining, which isn't working too well in California right now. And I am not at all opposed to mining copper in Arizona, although there are issues, local, to be dealt with; and I will let that go to another individual. I was deputy Secretary of the Department of the Interior and had the opportunity to deal with appraisals and land transfers.

This bill, as structured, is a bad deal for American taxpayers and for Americans. It basically is an enormous giveaway of extraordinary value to these two companies. As has been mentioned by our colleagues from Arizona who are in support of the bill, this is one of the biggest deposits of copper and other minerals in the United States and quite possibly among the biggest in the world.

What is its value? The mechanism that's used to determine the value of the trade is called a capitalization appraisal, which has to assume the cost, has to make assumptions on the extraction, the cost of extraction, and the amount of ore to be obtained.

There is no way in the appraisal process that that can be done with any accuracy at all.

In the language of the bill, there are certain provisions that make it impossible for the United States Government to go back and do a reappraisal, so we're left with a bad financial deal.

I'm all for the copper mining. It has to be done properly, and environmental views and all that. That's not the issue for me. The issue for me is let's make sure the American public gets the right value out of this, and there's only one way to do it. That is as the ore is extracted. It then has a known quantity and a known value, and a royalty on the ore extracted, that is the material--copper, gold, and other materials--is then known. And if you simply put a royalty on it, then the American people will get its fair share of its property.

This property doesn't belong to Rio Tinto or BHP Billiton; this property belongs to us, Americans.

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Mr. GARAMENDI. It belongs to us, Americans, and we ought to be getting our full value.

This is not an obscure or new provision. This is the standard procedure. We actually use it for oil extraction, except in deep water. It is something that really will give us the value.

Secondly, and I'll make this very, very short, the equipment used ought to be American made. There's going to be a lot of equipment, a lot of different equipment and material used; let's make that American-made. That's an amendment that will come later. But right now, deal with the royalty issues so that us Americans, all of us, 300 million, will get our share of the extraordinary value that this mine will produce.

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Mr. GARAMENDI. Our worthy chairman has put up a dozen canards, none of which really address the underlying issue here. This amendment is a very simple one that would locate in Arizona the headquarters for this mine. Is there something wrong with that? We are not moving this off to Finland. Come on.

This amendment would also provide that the copper--and it's been stated by the proponents of the bill that 25 percent of the copper needs in the United States would come from this mine, so why not use this copper in the United States? It seems to me to be perfectly reasonable, despite all the canards that we just tossed around here a few moments ago.

The other part of this has to do with the equipment. Is the worthy gentleman from Washington opposed to using American-made equipment in American mines? Is that what this is all about?

Yes, there may be some definitional problems. I'd be delighted to work with you on the definitional problems, but the underlying point is why would we set up all of this so that we could import the equipment from China or Japan or some other place. Why not simply require that this mine, which under the bill itself is an enormous giveaway of American property, of property owned by the American people and the enormous unparalleled giveaway of our value, why not simply require that at least if they're going to be given all of this, they be required to buy American-made equipment for the mine operation?

What's wrong with that? Why not make it in America? If this mine is in America, why not use American-made equipment and hire Americans and, in this case, Arizonans? You got a problem with hiring Arizonans? You got a problem with locating in Arizona the headquarters of this mine, or would you prefer London or maybe somewhere in Australia?

Come on. These are very simple amendments so that Americans can go to work. These are very simple amendments so that this company will buy American-made equipment to mine our copper which, under your proposal, is given away.

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