New Mexico US Rep. Leger Fernández’s bill would require mining companies to pay royalties

U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández (D-N.M.) on Thursday announced legislation that would require companies extracting hardrock minerals like gold, silver and uranium to pay up to 10% in royalties, as well as crack down on foreign adversaries’ extraction of valuable minerals from the United States.

In announcing the Minerals Royalty and Investment Act, Leger Fernández released a video featuring her standing on Carson National Forest land near Canjilon, where a Canadian company recently sought exploratory permits to mine uranium.

The proposal by Gamma Resources, Ltd., — which remains pending before state and federal regulators — has drawn widespread outrage from communities around the site since Source NM first reported on it in March. Leger Fernandez and other members of New Mexico’s congressional delegation have a separate bill pending that would ban uranium mining in the Chama Watershed outright. 

“It could pollute the water. It could destroy the land,” she said of the proposal in the video released Thursday. “And foreign mining corporations aren’t required to pay a single dime in royalties. I have a bill to change that.”

Leger Fernández noted that the General Mining Act of 1872 has allowed firms to mine hardrock minerals on public lands for more than a century without paying royalties, unlike companies that extract oil, natural gas and coal. 

The bill would impose fees of between 5% and 10% on gross income that companies receive from mineral extraction and allocate those funds to states and tribes. Funds also could go toward remediating abandoned mines that continue polluting public lands across the West, as well as to a newly established financial assistance program aimed at building domestic critical mineral processing facilities.

The bill text notes that no revenues from the newly imposed royalties can benefit coal or uranium processing facilities. 

Separate from the royalties, the bill would prohibit “foreign entities of concern”  — which Leger Fernández named Thursday as adversaries like China and Russia — or their subsidiaries from hardrock mining activities in the United States. 

Canadian uranium firm says lack of outreach in northern New Mexico a ‘mistake,’ vows future candor 

“We should not let foreign mining corporations take our precious resources and not pay a dime. Let’s invest it,” Leger Fernández said in the video. “Let’s invest it in things that our public lands need.”

The congresswoman noted that U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), the ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee, co-sponsored the bill, as did five other House Democrats. National environmentalist groups like the Wilderness Society and New Mexico Wild also endorsed it. 

“New Mexicans and American taxpayers continue to be on the hook for legacy hardrock mining cleanup across the state, and new claims keep coming,” Mark Allison, executive director of New Mexico Wild, said in a statement. “Adding insult to injury, under existing law, mining companies — including foreign based ones — pay the public no royalty for what they take from the public estate. The American Minerals Royalty and Investment Act provides a long overdue remedy.”