A Nevada Democratic U.S. senator is looking to Congress to ensure mining companies can use established mineral claims to dump waste on neighboring federal lands as they always had before a federal appeals court adopted a stricter interpretation of a 150-year-old law.
Environmentalists widely praised the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' more restrictive ruling, which blocked the Rosemont copper mine in southern Arizona last year because the company hadn't proven it had mineral rights on the adjacent land where the waste rock was to be buried.
