Exporting the resources and wealth of America
Just one land exchange bill cosponsored by John McCain would give away more American wealth than the last ten years of congressional earmarks combined. In a different way, Sarah Palin has worked to give away billions more - to the world's largest foreign-owned mining companies. Both would sacrifice generation of American natural resources for short term gain.
John McCain says he won't talk to America's enemies, but he will do business with them - by inviting into Arizona, foreign companies with very long and dark histories of war crimes, human rights abuses, environmental disasters, toxic pollution, supporting dictators and despots, military and government payoffs, union busting, displacing entire civilizations, and even starting and funding civil wars over mines. These same companies have uranium deals with China and Russia. One company shares a uranium mine with Iran, and has gold mining operations in Iran. The other company is working on a natural gas pipeline for Iran. These are the companies that John McCain and Sarah Palin are helping to obtain hundreds of billions worth of American natural resources for pennies on the dollar. Mining profits that will all be exported, leaving America with only billions of tons of toxic waste and uninhabitable land.
John McCain's history of land exchanges for wealthy developers has been well documented and reported in the media, but the former and pending legislation co- sponsored by McCain to exchange land with foreign-owned mining companies has not received any national media attention. These mining land exchanges are the most egregious pilfering of public lands, public assets and the public trust that John McCain has ever attempted, with hundreds of billions of dollars at stake, yet this issue has gone virtually unnoticed by most of America. As governor, Sarah Palin is now in a position to do an even worse deal in Alaska. Senator McCain and Governor Palin are welcoming Australian, British and Canadian mining companies with open arms and closed eyes, and that may end up costing America almost a half trillion dollars.
MCCAIN AND PALIN MINING CONNECTIONS
WORTH OVER $442 BILLION DOLLARS
- BUT WON'T BENEFIT AMERICANS
Both John McCain and Sarah Palin are trying to remove regulations to benefit the same giant foreign-owned mining companies that are attempting to open massive and controversial mines in Arizona and Alaska.
McCain and Palin have both recently taken controversial stands on water issues within their states that would favorably affect these companies’ proposed mining operations, at the expense of tens of thousands of American citizens for decades to come.
The Companies
One of the companies is the Britain-based Rio Tinto, which is the third-largest mining company in the world. Rio Tinto has been listed as having the worst record worldwide for toxic waste, environmental disasters, human rights abuses, widespread pollution and even war crimes.
The second company is the Australia-based BHP Billiton, which is the largest mining company in the world. BHP also has a notorious record for toxic waste, environmental disasters, human rights abuses and massive pollution. Currently BHP is attempting a $180 billion takeover of Rio Tinto.
There are two other companies involved in the Alaskan mine, Northern Dynasty and Anglo-American. Both are also foreign owned companies - Anglo-American was formerly South African, but is now British, and Northern Dynasty is Canadian. Anglo-American, the second largest mining company in the world, also has a history of toxic waste, environmental disasters, human rights abuses and high pollution levels.
The Mines
The mine in Arizona is called Resolution Copper Mining (RCM), a limited liability company owned by Resolution Copper Company (55 percent), a Rio Tinto PLC subsidiary, and BHP Copper, Inc. (45 percent), a BHP Billiton Ltd. subsidiary. The value of the minerals there - copper and molybedenum, are estimated to be worth at least $142 billion.
The mine in Alaska is called the "Pebble Mine" and would be owned by Rio Tinto, Northern Dynasty (Which is part owned by BHP), and Anglo-American. The value of the minerals there - gold, copper and molybedenum, is estimated to be worth at least $300 billion.
The Money
The estimated combined value of these Arizona and Alaska mines is $442 billion dollars. America's government, business and citizens stand to receive less than 2% of this sum over several decades, while the foreign owned companies and their shareholders will take the lion's share, or $433 billion. The majority shareholders of both Rio Tinto and BHP are also foreign-based. The more successful the mines are, the more money that will be flowing out of the Unitied States.
The natural resources from the mines will most likely go to China, both Rio Tinto's and BHP Billiton's largest customer. Recent negotiations between these companies and China resulted in a higher ore price and long-term supply contracts even more favorable to the mining companies.
The Environment
The hardrock mining industry is the single largest source of toxic releases in the U.S. In spite of this, Senator John McCain has attempted for several years to help Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton escape all environmental and disaster accountability by writing legislation designed to give these companies, through the jointly-own Resolution company, legal immunity. This Kyl-McCain legislation will hinder American citizens and businesses from ever being able to obtain legal damages from foreign companies operating mines in Arizona. Senator McCain has also attempted to renegotiate the Colorado River Water Compact in order to obtain the additional billions of gallons of water needed by the mining operation.
A "Clean Water" initiative coming before Alaskan voters would have killed the Pebble Mine before it even got started. Alaska law forbids state officials from using state resources to advocate on ballot initiatives. Violating state ethics laws, Governor Sarah Palin used a press conference to voice her opinion against the Clean Water initiative, which helped the mining companies sway the vote in their favor - and keep the Pebble Mine project going.
The Results
These mines should either (1) not be developed, or (2) they should not be developed by these companies without equal financial compensation to American interests, binding regulations, strict oversight, and environmental accountability, none of which presently exists. These are 20 to 70 year, long-term projects. Ideally, if these mines are to ever be developed, they should be developed by American companies, using the raw materials to supply industry in this country for decades to come, and the resulting profits to increase the wealth of Americans, instead of exporting our raw materials to our competitors in Asia and our profits to the rest of the world.
In spite of huge financial losses to America, pending environmental devastation, foreign mining companies with human rights abuses, environmental disasters, war crimes, toxic waste and staggering pollution levels, John McCain and Sarah Palin have given their support to windfall profit seeking foreigners. With errors in judgment and reckless behavior like this at the state level, there may be no limit to the damage that would be done to America should they be elected to national office.
***