This blog, and Understanding Government, pushes for better federal government regulation of the environment, but that almost always means more federal regulation. Here, though, is a report by the Wall Street Journal’s Robert Guy Matthews that makes a fairly persuasive case that the process for obtaining mining permits is unreasonably time consuming:

Overall, the U.S. is tied with Papua Guinea for the longest approval process among the 25 top mining countries in the world, according to Behre Dolbear Group, an international mining and mineral advisory group. In Australia, a huge mining center, the process takes an average of one to two years.

The length of the process for approving new mines means that the U.S., while having the reserves as well as the market appetite for metals and minerals, remains one of the top importers of the materials from Australia, Brazil, Canada and Africa.

“We are becoming more and more dependent on metal imports in the U.S.,” said Luke Popovich, spokesman for the National Mining Association, an industry group. Imports into the U.S. for selected metals—including gold, copper and zinc—rose 8.7% from 1998 to 2008, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The time frame in the U.S. isn’t necessarily reflective of tougher laws. Australia and Canada have environmental laws for mine building that are on par with U.S. rules. But mine building often draws more opposition in the U.S. than in those countries. Part of that is due to mining’s checkered history and reputation for pollution, abandonment and sometimes-shoddy management. Mining companies in the U.S., have cleaned up their management for the most part, but reputations haven’t caught up.

If federal regulators were more assertive and speeded up the process, the mining industry might be less inclined to fight regulators.

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