One of the first lessons responsible parents teach their children is both simple and valid: if you make a mess, clean it up. Many mining companies used their political influence to escape this admonition. This is true through out the West, even on the borders of Yellowstone National Park.

Their economic calculus is simple. Benefits from mining are current and concentrated. Social, economic, and environmental costs are distant, long lasting, and diffuse. To achieve short-term economic advantage, mining outfits like Pegasus Gold trample both the property rights of those harmed and environmental quality.

In his resignation letter, Forest Service Chief, Mike Dombeck notes, "Our modern industrialized society of 275 million people recognizes the values of open space, clean drinking water, and recreation far outstrip more traditional commodity values". Dombeck's statement indicates how strongly new forces are shaping the West.

Companies that recognize and respect the West's new values may prosper and gain respect in our increasingly Green region. Montana's Stillwater Mining Company, for example, has an excellent environmental compliance record and provides about 1,200 well paying jobs. The company is also negotiating the protection of 4,000 acres of open space in Stillwater and Sweet Grass counties.

Traditional mining operations, however, aren't this responsive to the importance of environmental quality in the new West. This is, in large part, due to the weak and outdated regulatory framework for which they lobbied and bribed. The old regulations haven't accommodated mining's change from picks and shovels to cyanide.

In some cases cyanide leaching may be as damaging, and is surely more insidious, than the old time hydraulic mining techniques that physically reshaped entire rivers in the 1800s. Why? Because cyanide often leaks and contaminates ground water. For example, in 1983 19,000,000 gallons of cyanide solution leaked from the Golden Sunlight mine near Whitehall, into ground water. Somewhat over 135,000,000 gallons have escaped into Montana's waters in the past 20 years. In 1999 Montana voters passed Initiative 137 to stop this harmful technology.

These spillovers (or leaks) harm wildlife, human health, and the property rights of neighbors. The EPA estimates 40 percent of the headwaters of all western watersheds are polluted by mining wastes. One especially egregious example is Soda Butte Creek, near Cooke City, on the border of Yellowstone National Park.

In March the Bush administration suspended the new mining regulations imposed in the last days of Clinton. These rules required companies which mine gold, silver, uranium, copper, lead, zinc, and molybdenum on federal lands to post bond to cover full reclamation costs. The new rules also gave the BLM the authority to deny permits for mines in places where they could cause "substantial irreparable harm", as well as the right to "enforce standards for assuring groundwater supplies aren't contaminated".

It's no accident that Clinton waited eight years to adopt these regulations. Like so many of his actions, this one was calculated and cowardly. Yet, on balance, the rules are beneficial and long overdue. Here's an example, one of hundreds.

The now bankrupt multi-national Pegasus Corporation operated the Zortman-Landusky mine near the Fort Belknap Indian reservation in Montana. Since commencing mining in 1979, the operation has accumulated a vast rap sheet of environmental fines. The $32 million reclamation bond it was forced to post in 1996 is grossly insufficient (by about $22 million) to do the job. In these circumstances, if reclamation occurs, taxpayers are stuck with the tab. The new mining regulations would reduced the public's liability for clean-up. A failure to require companies to bear the full costs of their actions is a huge subsidy.

Some subsidies are justified by their contributions to the general welfare. Education and research are prime examples. The mining subsidies however, result in harmful distortions by neglecting or discounting future costs. Whether they are explicit or implicit, they violate reasonable standards of equity, efficiency, and environmental quality.

I hope that the BLM's regulations are reinstated by Interior Secretary Norton. In an additional improvement, the states, as well as BLM, would take timely action on their reclamation bonds. These acts would demonstrate that the West can no longer be manipulated as a colonial economy. Our education, income, and sensitivities have increased and as a consequence, our tolerance for abuse has lessened. Given their avowed stand on responsible environmentalism, Republicans should recognize this. If they fail to do so, they will continue to lose the support of the well educated and well off. They will earn this fate by neglecting ecology.