Friday, November 23, 2007

Marilyn Musgrave two-faced on mining


Marilyn Musgrave has refused to support sensible reform of the 1872 Mining Act, preserving the ridiculous public giveaways to environmentally destructive special interests. She'll write letters about stopping one uranium mine when the public is paying attention, but when it comes to votes protecting watershed from mining overall, Marilyn Musgrave screws the CO-04 public over yet again. Musgrave has received thousands of dollars from mining PACs over the years.

Forty percent of the streams in the West are already polluted by mining, according to the EPA. Not only that but cities Musgrave represents, such as Fort Collins and Greeley, get their drinking water from public land rivers and streams.

Musgrave abandoned us

Rep. Marilyn Musgrave has been a vocal opponent of the proposed Weld uranium mine, even though she has no say over its permitting. But when she had a chance to take action to reform the 1872 Mining Act, she voted "no." Musgrave didn't walk the talk when she had the power to greatly improve our antiquated mining law that governs uranium mining on public lands.

Musgrave showed her true colors with her vote against practical, balanced mining reform. She voted against modernizing mining rules to protect our water supplies, wildlife habitat and neighboring communities from mining's negative impacts. She voted against requiring mining companies to clean-up their messes while leaving taxpayers holding the bag for expensive Superfund sites. Musgrave's vote to keep the old mining act means she's content to allow multi-national conglomerates to buy our public lands for the ridiculously low 1872 price of $5 an acre. When she voted against requiring mining companies to pay royalties to taxpayers, she indicated its ok with her to give our natural resources away for free to international corporations.

I guess it's easy for Musgrave to speak out against an unpopular mine but much harder to represent regular citizens and taxpayers instead of wealthy special interests. We're fortunate that a majority of our representatives were willing to step up to the plate to vote "yes" to update our mining laws.

I encourage Sens. Ken Salazar and Wayne Allard to follow the House's lead to support the reform of the 1872 Mining Act.

Barbara Liebler,
Fort Collins

Sign ProgressNow's petition telling Marilyn Musgrave to change her ways.