By Reuters Staff
1 Min Read
Jan 15 (Reuters) - The U.S. Bureau of Land Management gave final approval on Friday to Lithium Americas Corp’s Thacker Pass lithium mine in northern Nevada, part of a push by policymakers to boost domestic output of the white metal for electric vehicle batteries.
The Vancouver-based company now plans to seek financing for the project, which could be producing lithium by October 2022. The approval comes in the waning says of U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration, during which a raft of mining projects have been approved. (Reporting by Ernest Scheyder; Editing by Leslie Adler)
Feds Begin Transfer Of National Bison Range To Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes
The U.S. Interior Department Friday signed an order that will start the transfer of the National Bison Range to the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes.
The transfer of the National Bison Range, which was carved out of the Flathead Indian Reservation in 1908, comes as part of the Montana Water Rights Protection Act. The federal legislation passed on the coattails of a federal spending bill in December and settles the CSKT’s water rights.
Interior Secretary David Bernhardt signed an order directing the Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Indian Affairs and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to facilitate the transfer of the range to the tribes over the next two years.
Listen • 2:26
Pumpjacks in North Dakota s Bakken oil patch extract oil from deep underground. Oil production has grown nationally in recent months to 9.3 million barrels of oil per day.
Environmental groups last year won a case that overturned oil and gas lease sales in Montana from 2017 and 2018. Now they’re following up with a lawsuit against sales from 2019 and 2020.
The new lawsuit covers nearly 60,000 acres of land rights.
A handful of advocacy groups including the Montana Environmental Information Center and the Waterkeeper Alliance are asking A Montana federal district court in Great Falls to overturn 112 different lease parcels in central and eastern Montana and North Dakota.
In response to citizen s lawsuit
Headlight staff reports
DEMING – The U.S. Bureau of Land Management has told a federal court in New Mexico that it “intends to withdraw” its decision to allow the development of a dolomite mine on public land in the Florida Mountains south of Deming, New Mexico. A Motion for Stay of All Proceedings in Case Number 2:20-cv-00924, filed January 11, 2021, states that a new decision will be issued at some point in 2021, according to the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance.
American Magnesium has sought approval to mine the dolomite, believing it contains magnesium that could be extracted and sold, since early 2017. It originally proposed to transport the dolomite several miles across the city on a conveyor belt to a production facility proposed for the north side of Deming, but later conceded that the rock would need to be transported on trucks, at an estimated 92 daily trips.
The Trump administration on Thursday will offer the oil and gas industry a final chance to secure federal acreage before the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden, who has pledged to ban new drilling on public lands.