Don’t get too excited. It’s not a quote from the 135 year-old actor/director who some felt was snubbed with his last effort, “Get Off My Lawn: The Movie.” Believe it or not, we’re actually referring to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

One of the finest magazines in the country, Mother Jones has an eye-opening feature on Reid that really…made our day. It traces his Nevada mining past and explains his current support for some of the country’s worst polluters. To wit:





Nevadans' stubborn attachment to the old ways is also evident in a relaxed attitude toward the environmental costs of an industry that, according to the EPA, releases more toxic waste than any other. "You can't mine in California, Arizona, Montana, or Washington," the gold miner told me. But in Nevada, he added with a twinkle in his eye, "We're in the wild, wild West."

 

The Silver State owes its holdout status in part to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who went from a hardscrabble childhood in a gold town to becoming one of the mining industry's most reliable allies in Congress. Reid has been instrumental in blocking efforts to reform the archaic General Mining Law of 1872, a legal blank check that's allowed miners to take an estimated $408 billion worth of gold and other hard rock minerals from public lands without paying a single cent in federal royalties—ever. When those mines are tapped out or go bust—as they inescapably do—taxpayers are often stuck with the cleanup bill, estimated at more than $30 billion nationwide. But Reid, who owns a handful of defunct gold mines and whose sons and son-in-law have ties to mining companies, has vigorously fought off efforts to make the industry pay its way.

Again, this is an incredible story of special interests, and a proper addendum to Wednesday’s post. It really is the wild West: Since 1872, the article stated, “mining companies have been exempted from paying at least $100 billion in royalties, taxes, and fair land prices.”

However, the best moments are Reid’s ill-tempered episodes. In a debate on the 1872 law, his challenger said the mining companies own the senators in Nevada. Reid then curled his right hand into a fist and shouted the following: "Thinking that people here are voting because somebody owns them—I consider that an insult. I consider it an insult and I think that should be stricken from the record. Nobody owns me, and I've been insulted." So he was trying to say he was insulted. Meanwhile, Luke Popovich, spokesman for the National Mining Association, said "I suspect that whatever he decides is good for mining is going to be on the table."

Read Josh Harkinson’s “Harry Reid, Gold Member.”