Southern Arizona is blessed with abundant mineral resources, and cursed with a Congressional delegation and county supervisors, such as Ray Carroll, who would deny us that blessing.

Representatives Gabrielle Giffords and Raul Grijalva have introduced HR2944, the Southern Arizona Public Lands Protection Act of 2009 into the House. This bill would prohibit staking of mining claims, mineral leases, and geothermal projects on all federal land in Pima and Santa Cruz Counties (subject to pre-existing rights). This is essentially a response to the Rosemont mining venture.

Apparently, these politicians are not in favor of good jobs or economic opportunity.

According to testimony before the House Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands, the Steelworkers union opposes the bill. “HR 2944 is bad public policy. The bill would completely bypass the federal EIS process put in place under the National Environmental Policy Act for consideration of proposed mining and minerals operations that involve public lands. The EIS (environmental impact statement) process involves state and local agencies on a collaborating basis and works well to thoroughly examine proposed projects. Congressional intervention to enact land use and resources development policy on a county-by-county basis is a bad idea. In addition, job creation would be sacrificed in this bill. Mining plays a strong economic role and has done so for more than a century in Arizona.”

“In Arizona, the average mining job pays $60,000, which is 44% higher than the average pay in the state. Tourism and retail jobs on the other hand pay, on average, about half this amount or just over $29,000. In addition, for every new mining job, another 4 indirect jobs are created. Arizona is home to 411 mining operations that provide direct employment to about 18,480 people and another 34,360 people indirectly from mining activity occurring both in and outside the state for a total of 52,840 jobs statewide.”

The law is also poorly written and may have unintended consequences. For instance, the law would prohibit “all forms of entry, appropriation, and disposal under the public land laws.” The word “entry,” in what I think is the intended context, means “mineral entry” the terminology used for staking and registering a mining claim. But, as written, the law could be construed to prohibit cattle grazing, hunting, hiking, other forms of recreation, and use by the border patrol. The only “entry” we will see is by illegal aliens and drug smugglers.

To give you some idea of the mineral potential of Pima County and the folly of HR2944, I present below, excerpts from a 2001 publication, “Mineral Potential of Eastern Pima County, Arizona” published by the Arizona Geological Survey as Contributed Report 01-B. This report was written in response to Pima County’s Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan by The Southwestern Minerals Exploration Association, a group of local geologists (I am a co-author of the report).

Mineral production has always been viewed as an essential industry, not only to generate wealth and provide employment, but also for the array of products that are consumed by a society. Terms such as Bronze Age and Iron Age have served to demonstrate the essential role of minerals in improving a society’s standard of living. Today, in what we have come to call the Technology Age, the demand for minerals and mineral-bearing products has grown exponentially. This is not surprising, over the last four thousand years, societies with mineral technologies have flourished, while those lacking mineral resources have either conquered to take others, or have ultimately perished.

Mineral production is essential to our civilization because minerals provide the raw materials which allow our society to function. Pima County is endowed with many mineral resources, not only copper mines, but also the important products such as sand, gravel, and limestone used everyday in supporting the infrastructure of our cities. It is essential that these mineral resources, and the lands where they occur, remain available for exploration and development.

Pima County has a unique, and complex, geological history which makes it critical habitat for large copper deposits, geothermal resources, and many industrial minerals such as sand, gravel, gypsum, and limestone. This report documents known occurrences of these mineral deposits, and delineates areas with the greatest potential for future discovery of additional mineral deposits, based on existing geological and geochemical data, and upon proven methods of investigation.

Spencer R. Titley, University of Arizona Professor, wrote in 1982: “The porphyry copper deposits of southeastern Arizona and contiguous regions compose one of the richest copper metallogenic provinces on earth and perhaps the richest of seven separate porphyry copper provinces which surround the Pacific Basin. At least thirty-five separately named significant occurrences of porphyry-intrusion-related concentrations of copper occur here and the

record of discovery suggests that more will be found.” (Titley, Spencer R., 1982, Advances in Geology of the Porphyry Copper Deposits, Southwestern North America: University of Arizona Press, Tucson Arizona 560 pp.)

The first map below shows the distribution of known copper deposits in Pima and Santa Cruz Counties. The red color show outcrops of Laramide intrusives, which can be the generators of the mineral deposits. The brown shows outcrops of older host rocks. Additional potential occurs in the valleys under cover.

The next map shows the mines and areas that hold additional potential for discovery in Pima County. The broad orange arcs are areas favorable for exploration and discovery of porphyry copper deposits as defined by members of the Southwestern Mineral Exploration Association. The yellow areas (e.g. G-1) are tracts permissive for the occurrence of porphyry copper deposits defined by the U.S.Geological Survey in OFR 90-276 “Preliminary Mineral Resource Assessment of the Tucson and Nogales 1 x 2 Quadrangles, Arizona.” The green areas (e.g. T-1) are tracts favorable for the presence of undiscovered mineral deposits – High Potential Tract defined by the U. S. Geological Survey in Bulletin 2083 A-K “Resource Potential and Geology of Coronado National Forest, Southeastern Arizona and Southwestern N.M.”

The next map shows (in blue) the geothermal potential in Pima County. This is a low temperature resource suitable for space heating and cooling for industrial parks and residential developments such as apartments, town houses, condominiums and neighborhoods composed of single-family dwellings. This type of resource is also suitable for aquaculture and greenhouse agriculture. Studies show that 30 degree C water is ubiquitous at depths of 300m and that potential exists for potential for 50- to 55 degree C water at a depth of 1,000 m.

The red area is a mercury anomaly which sits below our water recharge project in Avra Valley (does Tucson Water know about this?). Not to worry though, the mercury anomaly is 75-750 ppb Hg while ADEQ allowable residential standard is 6,700 ppb Hg. (Reference: Hahman, W. R. and Allen, T. J., 1981, Subsurface stratigraphy and geothermal resource potential of the Avra Vally, Pima County Arizona: Arizona Bureau Geol & Min. Technology, OFR 81-5).

The American mining industry pioneered Arizona. For more than one hundred years, metal and aggregate companies have operated under the rules and regulations set out in legal frameworks.

Few anticipated that they would lose access to land for future mineral development. Viewed as a societal good, access to the land encouraged growth. The mineral products provided much needed materials for construction, trade, and local economies. Land-use planning was motivated by economic development needs, manifest in the desire for improved tax bases and infrastructure. Therefore mining plays a key role. We should not let short-sighted politicians deprive us of these benefits.

(Disclaimer: I spent my professional career exploring for and helping develop mineral deposits, and I worked for a major mining company. I have, however, no connection with Rosemont or Augusta Resources.)

After a year on the job, the Obama administration has learned little about energy. They still claim that “green” jobs will be created in the electrical generation sector if only we switch to more wind and solar energy projects.

Their claim that 5 million new jobs will be created in the energy sector over the next ten years is just not credible. Consider that, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the entire electrical generation industry, from mining, manufacturing equipment, power generation, and transmission, currently employs just under one million people. Where is Obama going to put 5 million more people? Will he have platoons of people peddling bicycles hooked to small generators? And in the State of the Union speech, he pushed for job-killing climate legislation in spite of recent events showing that the data have been fudged. During the speech, Obama was laughed at after referring to the “overwhelming scientific evidence on climate change.” First the audience laughed, then Pelosi and Biden, and finally Obama himself smirked at the insanity of his remark. Maybe his speech writers should read the news.

So called “green” energy is more expensive than fossil-fuel generated electricity, so energy costs would necessarily increase. Our economy is very sensitive to energy costs, so rising costs would more likely result in job losses rather than more employment.

According to a Cato Institute study (Policy Analysis 280), wind generation costs are 6-7¢ per KWh vs. 3¢ for natural gas, 2.2¢ for coal, and 1.7¢ for nuclear. Solar power costs 38¢ to 53¢ per KWh. The Cato report also said that the materials required for thermal-solar projects were 1,000 times greater than for a similarly sized fossil-fuel facility, and therefore would create substantial incremental energy consumption and industrial pollution. A major environmental cost of photovoltaic solar energy is toxic chemical pollution (arsenic, gallium, and cadmium) and energy consumption associated with the large-scale manufacture of photovoltaic panels. The installation phase has distinct environmental consequences, given the large land masses required for solar farms–some 5 to 10 acres per MW of installed capacity.”

 The Administration touts “fast-tracking” solar development in the west, but has limited permits to 670,000 acres of more than 30 million suitable acres available.

Wind-generated electricity, especially, is intermittent and unreliable, so that it requires conventional backup generating capacity. Energy companies will have a hard time monitoring and switching between generation sources to meet demand and prevent blackouts or brownouts.

The Interior Department policy does not help wind-power. The Cape Wind Project in Nantucket was to be the first off-shore venture, but Interior will allow the area to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places, thus precluding development.

During the State of the Union speech, Obama gave lip service to off-shore petroleum exploration. During the Bush administration, Congress lifted a moratorium on off-shore exploration, but Obama’s Interior Department has imposed a de facto moratorium while they “study” a leasing program. In 2009, the administration leased less land for energy development than that of any other year on record, according to the American Energy Alliance. And government revenues from leasing in 2009 were just one-tenth that in 2008. Meanwhile China is buying up all the leases it can get, some close to American shores.

The Interior Department has withdrawn most of the offered leases for natural gas in Utah, delayed oil shale research and demonstration projects in Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado, and blocked uranium mining in Arizona. Obama proposed development of nuclear energy. But, last year, in a sop to Senator Harry Reid, the Yucca Mountain nuclear repository was closed, so nuclear waste will continue to be stored in barrels near the generating plants rather than safely underground.

Biofuels such as ethanol require heavy government subsidies. According to the Journal of Environmental Monitoring, ethanol subsidies amount to the equivalent of $1.95 per gallon on top of the gasoline retail price. At present, no automobile manufacturer will extend an engine or parts warranty for vehicles that use more than 10 percent of ethanol content in fuel, except for vehicles specifically designed to run on E- 85 fuel. This means that the majority of cars on the road today in the United States are not under warranty for anything other than gasoline containing 10 percent ethanol or less. Currently, ethanol displaces about 2% of gasoline and saves relatively little in petroleum imports. Ethanol is not as energy efficient as gasoline. A 2006 study by Consumer Reports found that an E-85 vehicle delivered 27% less mileage than a similar gasoline-powered vehicle. A study from Stanford University found that ethanol-powered E-85 vehicles significantly increased ozone, a prime ingredient of smog.

While the Obama administration is all starry-eyed over “green” energy, it is unlikely that solar, wind, and biofuels taken together would ever account for more that 2- to 3% of total energy use. For the next few decades, at least, fossils fuels with continue to provide about 85% of energy.

What the government should do is remove restrictions to exploration and development of our domestic resources. For instance, in 2007, the Department of the Interior inventoried 99 million acres of federal land which it estimated to contain 21 billion barrels of oil and 187 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. DOI found that due to restrictive regulations “just 3 percent of onshore Federal oil and 13 percent of onshore Federal gas are accessible under standard lease terms.”

The Department of Energy estimates that the Green River formation in NW Colorado, SE Utah, and SW Wyoming contains 1.8 trillion barrels of oil in shale that could be economically produced. That is more than three times the total reserves of all Mid-East oil fields.

Off-shore resources are also restricted. The Minerals Management Service (of DOI) estimated that there are about 86 billion barrels of undiscovered, recoverable oil and about 420 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered, recoverable natural gas in the Federal Outer Continental Shelf of the United States, but 85% of this resource is off limits due to federal and state restrictions.

The U.S. has vast coal supplies which could be turned into gasoline, diesel, and other fuels. Coal reserves in Illinois alone, for instance, have the energy equivalent of all the oil in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait combined. The process was invented by the Germans in 1920 and perfected more recently by Sasol in South Africa. According to Business Week, Sasol “churns out 160,000 barrels of gasoline, diesel fuel, and jet fuel a day, enough to cover 28% of South Africa’s needs, without using a single drop of crude oil, imported or otherwise.” Cost is equivalent to about $30- to $35 per barrel of oil. This source alone could end our dependence on Mid-East oil.

Investors Business Daily (IBD) points out that China is attempting to lock up oil reserves throughout the world, including “in America’s backyard, Argentina, Venezuela, and Canada, and in a country America presumably dominates, Iraq.” At the same time, American oil companies are being discouraged by government, from exploring and exploiting domestic reserves. IBD opines that “What the world is witnessing is the largest peaceful transfer of power in history. Energy means power, and while the U.S. is consumed by environmental ideologies and climate rhetoric, it is committing economic hara-kiri in the process. China, riding on energy acquisitions with little competition, will propel itself into the economic stratosphere.” Obama’s stated goal of reducing our dependence on foreign oil seems to be based on a green fantasy, blinded by ideology.