The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) preemptive assessment of the Pebble Mine in Alaska could have a “chilling effect” on $220 billion in investments, according to the Brattle Group, an economic and financial consulting firm.

In May, the EPA released its watershed assessment of large-scale mining by Pebble LP at Bristol Bay, which could be one of the largest copper and gold mines in the world, and expressed concerns over impact the mine would have on local salmon habitats and surrounding wetlands.

Under the Clean Water Act, operations that dump “dredge or fill materials” into wetlands, rivers, lakes, or streams are required to obtain a Section 404 permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The EPA can revoke this permit if there are “unacceptable adverse impacts on municipal water supplies, shellfish beds and fishery areas, wildlife, or recreational areas.”

However, the watershed assessment did not evaluate any actual plans for the Pebble Mine, as none have been put forward, instead it evaluates a hypothetical mine. Independent scientists have also expressed concerns over this approach and have said the assessment was rushed.

“It has a chilling effect over all these kinds of investments. Everybody in every project knows that there’s a process, and it’s a challenge, a serious one, to comply with that process,” Dan McGroarty, president of the nonpartisan American Resources Policy Network, told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

“To be stopped before the process begins and subject it to a hypothetical is a new wrinkle, and that can chill capital, that can chill investment, and the jobs, in this particular economy, that we want to see,” he continued. “It’s going to have a very negative effect on the manufacturing process in the U.S.”

The EPA has never blocked a mining project after a preliminary watershed assessment was completed, and companies behind the Pebble mining project worry that doing so would make it easier for environmental groups to stop other projects.

“The EPA is flexing its administrative muscle and seeing how far forward it can reach and how far after the fact can it reach,” said McGroarty.

Congressional Republicans criticized the EPA’s tactis and California Republican Rep. Darrell Issa called the actions “unprecedented and legally questionable.”

“EPA’s assertion of pre-emptive veto power appears to undermine the permitting process as outlined by Congress when it passed the [Clean Water Act],” Issa wrote in letter.

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Editor's Note: We believe we need a full examination of the EPA tantamount to a full audit of the Fed. It is tme that the EPA's mission statement be better defined.


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