RE-STEM Industrial Systems Initiative

RE-STEM, Rail Enabled Sustainable Transportation of Essential Minerals

The essential minerals industry in North America is at an inflection point. Due to re-shoring, re-industrialization, and population growth trends, there is an ideal time to expand continental mineral mining and production. The mineral industry can serve these developments and reap economic rewards by integrating environmental stewardship with industrial progress, setting a new standard that meets market demands while preserving the planet for future generations. The path to success can be advanced collaboratively with relevant stakeholders by embracing whole systems planning, full lifecycle accounting, and multi-modal transportation that optimizes the use of railroads.

Foundational Principles

1. Collaborative Industrial Optimization
2. Environmental Responsibility
3. Community Engagement
4. Transparent Communication
5. Sustainable Systems Capitalization

Essential Minerals Environmental and Community IntelliConference

Background Statement:

Existing forums and methods for stakeholder engagement rely on competitive debate at best, creating barriers to honest communication and consensus-building. Rational, multidimensional idea generation and problem-solving for sustainable mineral production, use, and logistics is almost impossible. A new way for stakeholders to engage is needed. CAPSI provides that forum and method.

Core Question:

What optimal volumes, locations, and design elements of essential mineral mining and processing can industry and community stakeholders, including company management, association leaders, unions, environmental organizations, and community advocacy groups agree on for a profitable and sustainable mineral mining industry?

Round One Dialogue Questions-Mineral Supply Chain Framing:

1. Which stakeholder groups do we want to have a voice in this IntelliConference?
2. What are the continent’s “essential minerals?”
   1. What factors do we apply to determining the “essential minerals?”
   2. What factors do we apply to determine how much of each essential mineral we need and want?
   3. What volumes of mineral supply are needed to support the clean energy transition?
3. What are the current volumes of each essential mineral supply?
4. What are the current locations of each essential mineral supply?
5. What are the supply chain components for production, processing, and consumption?

Round Two Dialogue Questions-Environmental Issues Framing

1. What environmental concerns do we want to address in how minerals are mined?
2. What environmental concerns do we want to address in how minerals are processed?
3. What environmental concerns do we want to address in how minerals are used and recycled?
4. How do we best assess the environmental impacts of each step in each mineral's supply chain?
5. What are the opportunities for conserving the use of each essential mineral?
6. What has to happen to accommodate reducing the consumption of individual minerals when deemed beneficial to the environment?
7. When harmful environmental impacts are deemed unavoidable for any supply chain activities, how do we mitigate them?
8. What steps must be taken to communicate anticipated environmental impacts with transparency and trust?

Round Three Dialogue Questions-Community Issues Framing

1. What community concerns must be effectively addressed?
2. What are the environmental risks of mineral mining?
3. What are the degrees of risk between varying mineral mines?
4. What concerns for the transportation of minerals, ores, and products must be addressed?
5. What factors have to be addressed for mineral companies to use "Best Available Technology" throughout the life of the mine
6. How can potential health risks to communities be mitigated?
7. What steps can be taken to minimize or eliminate against aesthetic degradation?
8. How can communities maintain their sense of "place attachment?"
9. How do mineral activity managers generally relate to community concerns?
10. What approaches enable citizens' in accurately assessing risk?
11. What steps can mitigate citizens' concerns around mine and facility closures?
12. What steps can mineral companies take to improve relationships with communities?
13. What steps can be taken to increase the community's trust in mineral companies?

Round Four Dialogue Questions-Aligning Interests:

1. How can citizens be motivated to appreciate how the greater good advances their self-interests?
2. What would enhance citizens’ trust in governments and private enterprises?
3. How can the community's awareness of proposed mining activity be communicated?
   1. Switch from DAD (decide, announce, defend) to ADD (announce, discuss, decide)
   2. Community-oriented mining increases domestic participation in the global mining boom and makes supply chains more equitable and resilient.
   3. Mineral mining in North America alleviates our foreign dependency.
4. What strategies promote the acceptance of new mines?
5. What understandings encourage stakeholders to support local mines?
   1. We rely on minerals for almost every aspect of modern life.
   2. China is a significant global mining and processing leader.
   3. Shipping minerals by sea negatively impacts the environment, negating the benefits of products made with minerals, such as electric car batteries and wind turbines.
   4. Mining for coal occurs at the surface, leaving large scars on the land, while mining for minerals occurs at a further depth in the earth, leaving less visible effects.
   5. Show pictures of past successful projects.
   6. Communicate the safety and environmental record of essential minerals mining.
6. What socioeconomic gains result from mineral production?
   1. Mining is the first link in value chains.
   2. Mineral wealth undergirds community economic vitality.
   3. Mining enhances a regional cultural identity.
7. How can mining companies relate productively with communities and community leaders?
   1. How can mineral companies increase openness and transparency?
   2. What decision-making protocols have been used effectively?
   3. What steps can mineral companies take to acknowledge the validity of citizen’s concerns?
   4. How can mining companies and community leaders agree on development implications and responsibilities?
      1. Infrastructure upgrades
      2. Increased traffic pressure on transportation infrastructure
      3. Increased population
      4. Increased demand for housing and potential home price escalation
      5. Increase demand for public services, e.g., school enrollment, hospitality, medical services, recreation sites, public lands
   5. How can mining companies and community leaders develop a "Community Benefits Agreement?"

Essential Minerals Policy and Governmental Agencies IntelliConference

Background Statement:

Regulations and permitting processes evolve over time among public- and private-sector actors without important levels of trust, free-flowing engagement, and common sense. Consequently, both public interests and private sector progress are handicapped. A new approach for updating the regulatory and planning framework for the essential minerals supply chain is needed.

Core Question:

What regulations can stakeholders agree on that are either outdated, de minimis, redundant, or counterproductive, and can be improved, replaced, or eliminated in support of the growth and safety of essential mineral production and delivery?

Round One Dialogue Questions-Issue Framing:

1. Which federal agencies might be enrolled in participating and supporting RE-STEM?
   1. Environmental Protection Agency
   2. U.S. Department of Labor Mining Safety and Health Administration
   3. U.S. Department of Interior Bureau of Land Management
   4. U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service
   5. U.S. Department of Interior Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement
   6. U.S. Department of Interior, Division of Mineral Resources
   7. U.S. Department of Energy
2. Which federal laws regulate mining?
   1. National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)
   2. Clean Air Act (CAA)
   3. Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA)
   4. Clean Water Act (CWA)
   5. Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA)
   6. Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA)
3. Which state and local agencies might be enrolled in participating and supporting this development?
   1. State Surface Mining Commissions
   2. State Bureau of Mines and Geology Departments
   3. State Departments of Natural Resources
   4. Fish and Wildlife Agencies
4. What are the concerns of the government agencies that interact with the mineral industry?
5. What policy and regulatory issues are essential mineral companies concerned with?
   1. Clean Energy Reform Act
   2. The Mining Regulatory Clarity Act reaffirms decades of mining law and precedent and provides certainty for America's mineral producers.
6. What are the concerns of each stakeholder group?

Round Two Dialogue Questions-Issue Exploration:

1. What policy solutions will support the development of increased processing capacity?
   1. https://fas.org/publication/critical-thinking-on-critical-minerals/
2. What behaviors by mineral companies do government agencies want to see improved?
3. Where are the opportunities for collaboration, transparency, and trust to enhance the productivity of relations among stakeholder groups?
4. What antitrust and other laws and regulations regarding government convening must be considered for the amendment to accommodate more robust collaboration with and among the private sector?
5. How can government agencies improve mining permit inefficiencies?
   1. NEPA
   2. Improved Jurisdictional Coordination
   3. Uniform Interagency Approach
   4. Adequate Staffing and Specialized Talent
   5. https://natlawreview.com/article/permitting-reform-united-states