[House Hearing, 114 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
H.R. 3734, TO AMEND THE SURFACE MINING CONTROL AND RECLAMATION ACT OF
1977 TO PROVIDE SUPPORT TO MINING SCHOOLS, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES,
``MINING SCHOOLS ENHANCEMENT ACT''
=======================================================================
LEGISLATIVE FIELD HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND
MINERAL RESOURCES
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
Monday, December 14, 2015 in Idaho Springs, Colorado
__________
Serial No. 114-26
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Natural Resources
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COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES
ROB BISHOP, UT, Chairman
RAUL M. GRIJALVA, AZ, Ranking Democratic Member
Don Young, AK Grace F. Napolitano, CA
Louie Gohmert, TX Madeleine Z. Bordallo, GU
Doug Lamborn, CO Jim Costa, CA
Robert J. Wittman, VA Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan,
John Fleming, LA CNMI
Tom McClintock, CA Niki Tsongas, MA
Glenn Thompson, PA Pedro R. Pierluisi, PR
Cynthia M. Lummis, WY Jared Huffman, CA
Dan Benishek, MI Raul Ruiz, CA
Jeff Duncan, SC Alan S. Lowenthal, CA
Paul A. Gosar, AZ Matt Cartwright, PA
Raul R. Labrador, ID Donald S. Beyer, Jr., VA
Doug LaMalfa, CA Norma J. Torres, CA
Jeff Denham, CA Debbie Dingell, MI
Paul Cook, CA Ruben Gallego, AZ
Bruce Westerman, AR Lois Capps, CA
Garret Graves, LA Jared Polis, CO
Dan Newhouse, WA Wm. Lacy Clay, MO
Ryan K. Zinke, MT
Jody B. Hice, GA
Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen, AS
Thomas MacArthur, NJ
Alexander X. Mooney, WV
Cresent Hardy, NV
Darin LaHood, IL
Jason Knox, Chief of Staff
Lisa Pittman, Chief Counsel
David Watkins, Democratic Staff Director
Sarah Parker, Democratic Deputy Chief Counsel
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND MINERAL RESOURCES
DOUG LAMBORN, CO, Chairman
ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, CA, Ranking Democratic Member
Louie Gohmert, TX Jim Costa, CA
Robert J. Wittman, VA Niki Tsongas, MA
John Fleming, LA Matt Cartwright, PA
Glenn Thompson, PA Donald S. Beyer, Jr., VA
Cynthia M. Lummis, WY Ruben Gallego, AZ
Dan Benishek, MI Lois Capps, CA
Jeff Duncan, SC Jared Polis, CO
Paul A. Gosar, AZ Vacancy
Raul R. Labrador, ID Vacancy
Paul Cook, CA Vacancy
Garret Graves, LA Vacancy
Ryan K. Zinke, MT Vacancy
Jody B. Hice, GA Vacancy
Alexander X. Mooney, WV Raul M. Grijalva, AZ, ex officio
Cresent Hardy, NV
Rob Bishop, UT, ex officio
----------
CONTENTS
----------
Page
Hearing held on Monday, December 14, 2015........................ 1
Statement of Members:
Bishop, Hon. Rob, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Utah.................................................... 6
Prepared statement of.................................... 7
Hardy, Hon. Cresent, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Nevada............................................ 4
Lamborn, Hon. Doug, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Colorado.......................................... 2
Prepared statement of.................................... 3
Perlmutter, Hon. Ed, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Colorado.......................................... 5
Statement of Witnesses:
Freeman, Leigh, Principal, Leigh Freeman Consultancy, Denver,
Colorado................................................... 8
Prepared statement of.................................... 10
Miller, Hugh, Associate Professor of Mining Engineering,
Colorado School of Mines, Golden, Colorado................. 13
Prepared statement of.................................... 15
Nuttbrock, Nancy, PE, Associate/Texas Regional Leader,
Brierley Associates, Houston, Texas........................ 19
Prepared statement of.................................... 20
Additional Materials Submitted for the Record:
List of documents submitted for the record retained in the
Committee's official files................................. 29
LEGISLATIVE FIELD HEARING ON H.R. 3734, TO AMEND THE SURFACE MINING
CONTROL AND RECLAMATION ACT OF 1977 TO PROVIDE SUPPORT TO MINING
SCHOOLS, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES, ``MINING SCHOOLS ENHANCEMENT ACT''
----------
Monday, December 14, 2015
U.S. House of Representatives
Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources
Committee on Natural Resources
Idaho Springs, Colorado
----------
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:15 a.m., in
the Underground Classroom of the Edgar Mine, Colorado School of
Mines Experimental Mine, 365 8th Avenue, Idaho Springs,
Colorado, Hon. Doug Lamborn [Chairman of the Subcommittee]
presiding.
Present: Representatives Lamborn, Bishop, and Hardy.
Also Present: Representative Perlmutter.
Mr. Lamborn. The Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral
Resources will come to order.
Before we get started with our committee hearing, I would
like to first recognize Matt Schreiner, the Mine Manager here
at the Edgar Mine, for a safety briefing.
Mr. Schreiner. Thank you. Welcome all to the Edgar Mine. I
am glad that we can do this here today.
I will take a few minutes. Throughout your time underground
today, I need everyone to please keep your hard hats on at all
times. As you travel throughout the facility, please be mindful
of your footing. You want to avoid slips, trips, and falls. You
will see equipment, valves, disconnects, and switches. We ask
that you do not touch any of that.
Please stay together as a group; and if you have any
questions about the mine, mine operations, or safety, please
contact myself or some of the other workers that are identified
by cap lamps on their hard hats. Thank you.
Mr. Lamborn. All right, thank you.
The subcommittee is meeting today to hear testimony on a
bill introduced by Representative Cresent Hardy, who is with us
here today, H.R. 3734, a bill to amend the Surface Mining
Control and Reclamation Act of 1977, to provide support to
mining schools, and for other purposes. It is the ``Mining
Schools Enhancement Act.''
By way of introduction, I am Doug Lamborn, the Chairman of
the Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources. I also
represent the 5th District of Colorado, which is south and east
of here.
Also with us today is Congressman Rob Bishop from Utah, the
Chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, and
Congressman Cresent Hardy of Nevada.
We also have the pleasure of having with us today Ed
Perlmutter of Colorado, a friend and colleague of many years
who represents the Colorado School of Mines campus.
Since Mr. Perlmutter does not serve on the committee, I ask
unanimous consent that he be allowed to sit with the committee
and participate in today's hearing.
Hearing no objection, so ordered.
I now recognize myself for an opening statement.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. DOUG LAMBORN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF COLORADO
Mr. Lamborn. Today the subcommittee is meeting to discuss
H.R. 3734, the ``Mining Schools Enhancement Act,'' that was
introduced on Friday, October 9 by Mr. Hardy and Mr.
Perlmutter. Thank you again for joining us today.
I am excited to be chairing what is, to my understanding, a
historical first for Congress, the first congressional hearing
held underground in a mine. What better place to gather and
discuss the need for future mining engineering experts, a need
felt by industry, states, and the Federal workforce, as well as
nonprofits.
This bill is the final in a three-pronged response to the
EPA's Gold King and Standard Mine spills that occurred here in
Colorado in August and September of this year. These three
bills provide a path forward to tackle the problem of abandoned
mines that need remediation.
My legislation, H.R. 3843, includes a Good Samaritan title,
which provides limited liability relief for existing conditions
at abandoned mine land (AML) sites for the Clean Water Act and
the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and
Liability Act (CERCLA), to encourage volunteer cleanup of both
coal and non-coal AML sites.
H.R. 3844, sponsored by Congressman Jody Hice of Georgia,
provides a way for concerned individuals and organizations,
like environmental groups that have been so vocal on this
issue, to raise money to help fund the cleanups through the
private sector.
This bill, while receiving seed money from claim
maintenance fees, provides a mechanism for unlimited funding
through the non-governmental sector.
In the committee's investigation of the Gold King Mine
spill, we discovered that out of 15,326 employees that the EPA
has, there is not a single mining engineer--out of 15,326
employees. They only have 68 geologists, only two of which are
assigned to Region 8, where these unfortunate spills occurred.
In contrast, out of 8,790 employees, the Bureau of Land
Management (BLM), does have 36 mining engineers and 170
geologists.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, in the Department of the
Interior's recent Technical Evaluation of the Gold King Mine
Incident Report, found that in abandoned mine guidelines and
manuals, there is significant emphasis on environmental
issues--``with little appreciation for the engineering
complexity of some abandoned mine projects that often require,
but do not receive, a significant level of expertise.''
This brings us to why we are here today. The Mining Schools
Enhancement Act, sponsored by Congressman Hardy, provides
support to the mining schools around our Nation which produce
the mining engineers of the future. In part, this is to ensure
that the Nation has the technical expertise to competently
perform cleanup of AML sites.
I am excited to hear from our witnesses today. Leigh
Freeman, a professional talent recruiter for the mining
industry, will be speaking on behalf of the National Academies
of Science on a recent report from the Academies. This report
on the emerging workforce trends in the U.S. energy and mining
industries was instrumental in the development of this
legislation.
I would also like to welcome Dr. Hugh Miller, a Professor
of Mining Engineering at CSM, the Colorado School of Mines; and
Nancy Nuttbrock, who was with the Wyoming Department of
Environmental Quality until 2014, where she was Deputy
Director.
I want to thank all the witnesses for being here, and I
look forward to hearing from them today.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Lamborn follows:]
Prepared Statement of the Hon. Doug Lamborn, Chairman, Subcommittee on
Energy and Mineral Resources
Today, the subcommittee is meeting to discuss H.R. 3734, the
``Mining Schools Enhancement Act'' that was introduced on Friday,
October 9 by Mr. Hardy and Mr. Perlmutter. Thank you for joining us
today.
I'm excited to be chairing what is, to my understanding, a
historical first for Congress. The first congressional hearing held
underground in a mine. What better place to gather and discuss the need
for future mining engineering experts, a need felt by industry, states
and Federal workforces, and nonprofits alike.
This bill is the final of a three-pronged response to the EPA's
Gold King and the Standard Mine spills that occurred in my state,
Colorado, in August and September of this year. These three bills
provide a path forward to tackle the problem of abandoned mines that
need remediation.
My legislation, H.R. 3843, includes a Good Samaritan title, which
provides limited liability relief for existing conditions at abandoned
mine land (AML) sites for the Clean Water Act and the Comprehensive
Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), to
encourage volunteer cleanup of both coal and non-coal AML sites.
H.R. 3844 sponsored by Congressman Hice provides a way for
concerned individuals and organizations, like environmental groups that
have been so vocal on this issue, to raise money to help fund the
cleanups through the private sector. This bill, while receiving seed
money from claim maintenance fees, provides a mechanism for unlimited
funding thought the non-government sector.
In the committee's investigation of the Gold King mine spill, we
discovered that out of 15,326 employees EPA has, they have no `mining
engineers' and only 68 geologists, two of which are assigned to Region
8 where the spills occurred. In contrast, out of 8,790 employees, BLM
has 36 `mining engineers' and 170 geologists.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, in the Department of the Interior's
recent Technical Evaluation of the Gold King Mine Incident Report,
found that in ``abandoned mine guidelines and manuals'' there is
significant emphasis on environmental issues--``with little
appreciation for the engineering complexity of some abandoned mine
projects that often require, but do not receive, a significant level of
expertise.'' \1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ http://www.usbr.gov/docs/goldkingminereport.pdf (page 2).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
This brings us to why we are here today. The ``Mining Schools
Enhancement Act'' sponsored by Congressman Hardy provides support to
the mining schools around our Nation which produce the mining engineers
of the future. In part, this is to ensure that the Nation has the
technical expertise to competently perform cleanup of AML sites.
I'm excited to hear from our witnesses today. Leigh Freeman, a
professional talent recruiter for the mining industry, will be speaking
on behalf of the National Academies of Science on a recent report from
the Academies. This report on emerging workforce trends in the U.S.
Energy and Mining Industries was instrumental in the development of
this legislation.
I'd also like to welcome, Dr. Hugh Miller, a professor of mining
engineering at CSM; and Nancy Nuttbrock, who was at the Wyoming
Department of Environmental Quality until 2014 where she was Deputy
Director.
I want to thank all the witnesses for being here and look forward
to hearing from them today.
______
Mr. Lamborn. I would now like to recognize the author of
H.R. 3734, Representative Hardy, for a statement on his bill.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. CRESENT HARDY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEVADA
Mr. Hardy. I would like to thank the Chairman, and also
Chairman Bishop for holding this hearing today. And thank you,
Congressman Perlmutter, for going on and serving as an
important asset to help get this bill through.
I would also like to extend a special thank you to the
Colorado School of Mines for hosting this today. I appreciate
you for that.
As a fifth-generation son of farmers and ranchers, and a
former general engineering contractor, I am all about hard work
and getting my hands dirty. The Edgar Experimental Mine here in
Idaho Springs is my kind of environment. It is truly a
privilege to get out of Washington and see what the next
generation of scientists and engineers will learn in their
craft.
There is not a single sector of the economy that is not
touched by mining, whether it be minerals to power our
industrial companies, metals that allow our consumer
electronics and our military to function, or the materials I
relied on as a contractor to build roads, bridges, and dams.
America's economy, energy, and national security all depend on
a capable mining and engineering workforce. Yet, despite the
vital importance of these highly skilled and technical experts
in the mining disciplines to private industry, academic
institutions, and government agencies, we have witnessed a
dangerous decline in the number of accredited mine schools and
the graduates that they produce.
This generated a vicious cycle that has a devastating
impact across the board. We are at a generational crossroads as
the demographics of the U.S. workforce continue to change. With
Baby Boomers retiring in large numbers, experts in the mine
disciplines are needed now more than ever. Private sector
mining companies are in a constant search for STEM graduates
with the capabilities to understand and employ advanced
technologies, even in entry-level positions.
At our regulatory agencies, the situation is equally
serious. According to Richard Perry, the Administrator of the
Nevada Division of Minerals, agencies have had to hire
graduates that do not have the technical skills required to
manage and evaluate mine-related projects, mine reclamation and
closure, or to evaluate environmental risk associated with
orphan mines. This is due to the absence of available graduates
with degrees in mining and mineral engineering and may lead to
more environmental disasters like the Gold King Mine water
disaster and spill.
As schools that produce the very mining engineering
graduates that are shrinking in supply lack access to Federal
funding for research, it has tripled the pipeline for new
faculty and made mining education programs less and less
sustainable.
So, what can we do about it? To start, we can amend SMCRA
by directing the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and
Enforcement to distribute 70 percent of the funding made
available for applied science transfer programs and accredited
mining schools. This will enhance and support those educational
programs and involve more undergraduate and graduate students
in critical research.
The Mining School Enhancement Act is a common-sense
bipartisan bill that would do just that. By supporting and
training mineral engineers and scientists in the field of
mining minerals resources and technology, my bill helps to
restore the original intent of the Office of Surface Mining
under SMCRA and will attack the shortage of mining engineers in
this country head-on.
To sum it all up, the Nation needs more mining engineers.
To ensure that more mining engineers are produced, our mining
schools must be sustained; and to sustain our mining schools,
they need a strong faculty; to ensure that strong faculty, new
professors need to make it through the tenure process; to make
it through the tenure process, new professors need to conduct
research; to conduct research, professors need to have Federal
funding. We need to provide more funding to support mining
schools, and the Mining Enhancement Act will help accomplish
this.
Again, I would like to thank my colleagues, the Colorado
School of Mines, and the witnesses for being here today. I look
forward to hearing the testimony.
Mr. Lamborn. Thank you.
I now recognize the original co-sponsor of this
legislation, Representative Perlmutter, for his opening
remarks.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. ED PERLMUTTER, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF COLORADO
Mr. Perlmutter. Thank you. I want to thank Congressman
Lamborn and Congressman Bishop for letting me participate in
this underground hearing today.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Perlmutter. It is really actually very exciting. I also
want to thank Congressman Hardy for sponsoring this bill to
help train and educate our mining engineers and scientists of
the future. This is badly needed both in terms of developing
and maintaining the extraction of our natural resources in a
solid way, and also dealing with assets that were closed a long
time ago where it needs help. It needs real science and real
engineering to do it right.
I would like to thank the committee for showcasing the
Colorado School of Mines, which is one of the premiere
engineering and research institutions in the world, and has
students from all over the world that participate in it. I want
to thank the School of Mines for hosting our hearing today.
Thank you.
Mr. Lamborn. Thank you.
I now recognize the Chairman of the Full Committee, the
gentleman from Utah, Mr. Bishop, for a statement.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. ROB BISHOP, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
FROM THE STATE OF UTAH
Mr. Bishop. I want to thank everyone who is here as well,
especially the Colorado School of Mines for hosting this event.
This is weird.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Bishop. It is great to be here. I appreciate Doug,
Cresent, and Ed for joining us here. Thank you for coming down,
for putting all of this together.
We are here to hear testimony, specifically about H.R.
3734, from our three witnesses. That is part of a larger
package that we have put together that deals with the Gold King
Mine in the omnibus bill that should have been prevented and
could have easily been prevented.
These three bills that deal with the Good Samaritan Act,
that deal with getting more engineers, more experts--however
you want to define that--into the field, as well as involving
the private sector and private money coming in with the Hice
bill, they all are complementary, to be proactive in finding a
solution so that none of this happens again.
Secretary Jewell finally appeared before our committee last
week, and there was something a little bit troubling about the
report that the Interior Department, the Bureau of Reclamation
specifically, gave to us. It did show what I think is a lack of
transparency. There was unclear objectivity. It was a very
narrowly focused investigation. But, it also showed that the
government, specifically EPA in this situation, was blatantly
mishandling the spill, both before and afterwards, and that we
need to do something different.
We have 400,000 abandoned mines still here in the country,
and it brought into question the ability of the Federal
Government to adequately manage those other mines and to clean
them up, whether they can handle it or not.
So, as Doug said, it is frustrating to us that EPA, with
their 15,000-plus employees, has no mining engineers. Our
committee, by serendipity, actually has more mining engineers
than EPA does.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Bishop. That is why Cresent's and Ed's bills are so
significant, because obviously there has been a reduction of
the students that we are putting out into that sector, and
there has to be some kind of assistance to make it happen.
We have an aging workforce, all sorts of good jobs that are
out there, and potential. Americans need to have those jobs,
and we need to start training Americans to take those jobs and
expand and make better an industry that still has a lot to give
to this country. That is very important to us.
So, I am looking forward to that. I am happy to be here
with my colleagues. I appreciate the witnesses who are here. I
am looking forward to this hearing.
This is something that I hope we are taking lots of
pictures of, because nobody, nobody is going to believe this
back in Washington.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Bishop. One last thing I would like to ask of our
staff. I appreciate the hard work they put in to make this
happen.
How many of these do you think I can pack today?
[Laughter.]
Mr. Bishop. There is no bathroom here, so this will be----
[Laughter.]
Mr. Bishop. I will apologize in advance, but we do have a
plane to catch back to Washington. So between the plane ride
and these three bottles, we may make a quick exit.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Bishop. Thank you all for being here. I appreciate
being a part of this.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Bishop follows:]
Prepared Statement of the Hon. Rob Bishop, Chairman, Committee on
Natural Resources
First, I would like to thank the Colorado School of Mines for
hosting us for this field hearing to discuss H.R. 3734, the ``Mining
Schools Enhancement Act,'' introduced by our colleague, Mr. Hardy.
H.R. 3734 is part of a larger mining development and reclamation
bipartisan reform package that also includes two other bills:
-- H.R. 3844, the ``Energy and Minerals Reclamation Foundation
Establishment Act,'' introduced by Rep. Jody Hice of
Georgia, which provides a private sector funding mechanism
for Abandoned Mine Land (AML) cleanup, seeded by Federal
mineral lease fees, and
-- H.R. 3843, the ``Locatable Minerals Claim Location and
Maintenance Fees Act,'' introduced by Mr. Lamborn, which
provides liability relief for Good Samaritan individuals or
entities who wish to come in and restore AML sites.
These three bills work in a complementary fashion to address the
range of complex technical, legal, education and funding related
challenges facing mining development and reclamation.
While all three reforms offer a proactive and positive set of
solutions that are long past due, they are now even more critical, in
light of the EPA-caused Animas River spill, which occurred last August
some 325 miles from here at the Gold King Mine, not far from Silverton.
After months of failing to provide clear answers, last week
Interior Secretary Jewell finally appeared before the committee to
testify about her Department's role in the spill, before, during, and
after. The hearing underscored the deeply troubling response by this
Administration to the spill, including a complete lack of transparency
and objectivity and a too narrowly-focused investigation of the Federal
agencies' blatant mishandling of the spill and its aftermath.
As a result of this disaster, the Obama administration's
credibility in managing abandoned mines is at an all-time low, which is
why the legislation we are here today to discuss is so important.
Today there may be as many as 400,000 abandoned mines across the
western states, some of which pose serious health and safety hazards,
and environmental risks as exemplified by the Gold King Mine spill.
Although we still don't know why the EPA started urgently digging
at the Gold King Mine, resulting in the Animas River spill, the event
did help draw a spotlight to broader mining reclamation challenges.
It also further made clear that the Federal Government cannot
handle the job. The EPA doesn't even have the mining engineering
expertise to do so. There are more mining experts on our own committee
staff than even on EPA's team. This is completely unacceptable.
Mr. Hardy's common-sense bill--H.R. 3734--encourages and provides
support to America's mining schools that produce and help train the
experts needed on the technical side to do this work in the future.
I appreciate being here today with my colleagues, Subcommittee
Chairman Lamborn, and Congressman Hardy, to discuss their bills; and I
welcome Congressman Perlmutter and thank him for joining us today for
this hearing. And I look forward to hearing from our witnesses.
______
Mr. Lamborn. OK, thank you.
We will now hear from our panel of witnesses. Each witness'
written testimony will appear in full in the hearing record, so
I ask that witnesses keep their oral statements to 5 minutes as
outlined in our invitation letter to you and under Committee
Rule 4(a).
I also want to explain how our timing lights work. When you
begin to speak, our clerk will start the timer and a green
light will appear. After 4 minutes, a yellow light will appear,
and at that time you should speed up. At 5 minutes, the red
light will come on, and we ask that you finish your statement
at that time.
Before we hear from our witnesses, I also want to take a
moment to urge the audience to submit written comments that
will be included in the hearing record. We want to include as
many comments as possible into the hearing record. There are
comment forms at the room entrance, and you can also submit
comments at our Web site, which is
www.naturalresources.house.gov, under ``Contact Us.''
We want to hear from you. If you have any questions about
how to do this, please see one of our staff members.
I will now introduce the witnesses.
We have Mr. Leigh Freeman, Principal of Leigh Freeman
Consultancy; Dr. Hugh Miller, Associate Professor of Mining
Engineering at the Colorado School of Mines; and Ms. Nancy
Nuttbrock, Associate and Texas Regional Leader of Brierley
Associates.
The Chair now recognizes Mr. Freeman for his statement.
STATEMENT OF LEIGH FREEMAN, PRINCIPAL, LEIGH FREEMAN
CONSULTANCY, DENVER, COLORADO
Mr. Freeman. Chairman Lamborn, Mr. Perlmutter, and members
of the committee, I would like to thank you for the invitation
to address you on the subject of education, training, and
workforce issues related to the U.S. mining industry. My name
is Leigh Freeman, and I am the Principal at Leigh Freeman
Consultancy. I have more than 40 years of experience in the
private sector of the mining industry.
Relevant to these proceedings, I served as a member of the
Committee on Emerging Workforce Trends in the U.S. Energy and
Mining Industries of the National Academies of Sciences,
Engineering, and Medicine. The National Academy of Sciences was
chartered by Congress in 1863 to advise the government on
matters of science and technology.
In 2013, the Academies' committee published a consensus
report sponsored by the Department of Energy's National Energy
Technology Laboratory. Specifically, the report analyzed the
need for and availability of workers for the hardrock and coal
mining, oil and gas, geothermal, nuclear, solar, and wind
energy industries.
Two factors impact the workforce across all mining and
energy sectors. The first is demographic. Approximately one-
third of the U.S. workforce comprises Baby Boomers, who are
poised to retire in great numbers by the end of this decade.
Mr. Lamborn. Mr. Freeman, can I ask you to speak just a
little bit louder for our recording equipment? Thank you.
Mr. Freeman. Moreover, there are too few workers currently
available and prepared to replace them.
The second major crosscutting factor impacting the
workforce is competencies. Specifically, the application of
STEM principles in the workplace has increased the skill and
competency requirements of the mining and energy workers.
In its recommendations, the committee highlighted the
importance of collaborative efforts among government, industry,
and educational institutions to create multiple pathways in
higher education. To ensure that there are enough faculty now
and in the pipeline who qualify to work and teach at the
cutting edge of technology, the committee also recommended that
the government and industry consider public-private
partnerships to provide joint support for mining and energy
research programs at U.S. universities.
The balance of my remarks will focus on the mining
component of the report.
The study committee identified a critical role for U.S.
universities to develop graduate research programs in mining,
with the goal of establishing global technological leadership.
Although the need for sustaining highly qualified university
faculty and graduates in mining engineering and mineral
processing is evident, the capacity of U.S. universities to
meet this need is severely challenged. Data illustrate the
nature of these challenges.
First, the number of accredited mining and mineral
engineering programs has declined from 25 in 1982 to 14 in
2007. The number of faculty has also declined, from
approximately 120 in 1984 to a mere 70 in 2007.
Over the last 10 years, U.S. universities have produced
fewer than 200 mining engineers per year for employment across
the full spectrum of metals, coal, industrial minerals, and
building materials in support of Federal positions.
Observations from my own professional experiences
complement work done by the Academies' committee. In 2002, the
industry and the academic community, acting through an
industry-supported professional organization, the Society of
Mining Metallurgy and Exploration (SME), recognized the pending
crisis of talent in the U.S. mining industry. These efforts of
SME supported the Energy Policy Act of 2005, as well as the
Academies' report presented here.
Consistent with the recommendations of the Academies,
industry formed and funded the SME Education Sustainability
Committee. This year, actionable items facilitated by this
committee included two initiatives: one, the development of 4-
year graduate fellowships for qualified Ph.D. students, who are
committed to pursuing careers in academia; and two, the
awarding of career grants to assist new faculty in establishing
research and publication records necessary to achieve tenure
and promotion. This program is chaired by Dr. Hugh Miller,
Colorado School of Mines, who will be speaking next.
The Academies' report recommended industry-funded programs,
such as ESC, as a short-term solution to a longer-term, stable
solution realized by public-private funding. In summary, the
Academies' report suggested expansion of research programs at
universities, with matching funds from industry, could be
directed toward advancing technology to drive innovation, and
developing university faculty.
I would like to thank the committee for its time and
interest in this subject, and I look forward to questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Freeman follows:]
Prepared Statement of Leigh Freeman, Principal, Leigh Freeman
Consultancy; and Member, Committee on Emerging Workforce Trends in the
Energy and Mining Industries, Board on Earth Sciences and Resources,
Division on Earth and Life Studies; and Board on Higher Education and
Workforce, Policy and Global Affairs, the National Academies of
Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Chairman Lamborn, Ranking Member Lowenthal, and members of the
committee, I would like to thank you for the invitation to address you
on the subject of education, training, and workforce issues related to
the U.S. mining industry. My name is Leigh Freeman and I am the
Principal at Leigh Freeman Consultancy. I have more than 40 years of
experience in the private sector of the mining industry. I am a
Geological Engineering graduate of the University of Montana at Montana
Tech. I am deeply involved in minerals education and talent
development. To this end, I currently serve on industry advisory boards
for the geological engineering department of the University of Montana
at Montana Tech, the Profession Land & Resource Management program for
the Western State University here in Colorado, and the mining
engineering advisory boards for the South Dakota School of Mines and
the University of Arizona. For much of my professional career I have
been active on committees for the Society of Mining, Metallurgy &
Exploration (SME), particularly those committees involving minerals
education and sustainability. Relevant to this proceeding, I served as
a member of the Committee on Emerging Workforce Trends in the U.S.
Energy and Mining Industries of the National Academies of Sciences,
Engineering, and Medicine. The National Academy of Sciences was
chartered by Congress in 1863 to advise the government on matters of
science and technology and later expanded to include the National
Academies of Engineering and Medicine.
In 2013, the Academies' committee of which I was a member published
a consensus report titled ``Emerging Workforce Trends in the U.S.
Energy and Mining Industries: A Call to Action,'' which was sponsored
by the Department of Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory.
The report examined the U.S. mining and energy workforce, and proposed
approaches to address crucial, emerging needs to meet the Nation's
requirements for skilled workers in most mining and energy sectors,
spanning the workforce in private industry, at universities, and in the
Federal Government. The report task originated as a congressional
mandate in the Energy Policy Act of 2005.
Specifically, the report analyzed the need for and availability of
workers for the hardrock and coal mining, and oil and gas, geothermal,
nuclear, solar, and wind energy industries. In each of these sectors,
the committee examined the availability of skilled labor at both entry
and senior levels; the historical and current trends in the size,
growth, and demographics of the workforce; labor market
characteristics; future demand for and supply of workers; job health
and safety impacts of potential labor shortages; and, particularly
relevant to today's discussion, the availability and need for education
and training programs for workers in these sectors. The report
recognized that creation of a skilled workforce begins early, that the
Nation will depend on these workers to be capable in science,
technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines, and that
this STEM prerequisite creates a parallel requirement for an
educational system that can effectively teach these subjects.
I will focus my remarks primarily on those aspects of the Academies
report that are relevant for mining and the topic of today's hearing.
However, the broader scope of the report provides useful context to the
mining information and I will share some of the overarching
recommendations from the report. I will also add some personal
observations from my own professional experience about what has taken
place in academia and industry to address mining education at the
university level over the last 15 years.
Two major factors impact the workforce across all mining and energy
sectors. The first is Demographic. Approximately one-third of the U.S.
workforce comprises Baby Boomers--the generation born between 1946 and
1964--and they are poised to retire in great numbers by the end of this
decade. Moreover, there are too few younger workers currently available
and prepared to replace them. The second major crosscutting factor
impacting the workforce is Competencies. Specifically, the application
of STEM principles in the workplace has increased the skill and
competency requirements of the mining and energy workers. A strong
foundation in STEM skills is therefore needed for many mining and
energy jobs, and the need is growing at all levels as innovation and
new technologies are increasingly applied in the workplace. The current
pipeline of STEM-capable students and workers is inadequate to meet
these workforce needs. The report outlined seven recommendations to
address the shortfalls of the current education pipeline and I will
review those briefly.
In its recommendations to address challenges presented by
Demographics and Competencies, the committee highlighted the importance
of collaborative efforts among government, industry, and educational
institutions to create and support new approaches to develop multiple
pathways in higher education that can lead to a range of mining and
energy jobs. To ensure that there are enough faculty now and in the
pipeline who qualify to work and teach at the cutting edge of
technology, the committee also recommended that the government and
industry consider public-private partnerships to provide joint support
for mining and energy research programs at U.S. universities, with the
goal of attracting and better preparing students and faculty, promoting
innovation, and helping to insure the relevance of university programs.
Recognizing that industry's ability to financially support these
critical efforts is subject to market price cyclicity in the commodity
sectors underscored the importance of government-industry partnerships
in providing consistent financial support for mining and energy
education.
The availability of current, accurate mining and energy information
was also highlighted by the committee as being important. The report
stressed the need for industry and educational institutions to provide
timely and accurate information about career opportunities in mining
and energy fields, and educational and career navigation resources
targeted toward students, educators, and policymakers. In a related
way, the report called upon the Federal Government to work with
industry to develop more agile and responsive workforce data that
reflect the fast-paced change of jobs and occupations and allow
students, educators, and employers to understand and take advantage of
changing job opportunities.
Finally, the report found a critical, pending shortage of Federal
employees involved in mineral and energy fields due to high, ongoing
retirement rates in the Federal Government sector. These Federal
employees play an important role in data gathering and advising, as
well as in oversight of mining and energy activities for an
increasingly involved and concerned citizenry. The committee
recommended several approaches for the agencies to attract and retain
qualified workers to meet current and future needs in mineral and
energy policy, permitting, extraction methods, production oversight,
reclamation, and research and data provision. The committee noted the
challenges faced by the Federal sector in hiring qualified employees
both because of the high retirement rates and competition from the
higher compensation offered by industry.
The balance of my remarks will focus on the mining component of the
report. Mineral and energy resources are essential for the Nation's
fundamental functions, its economy, and its security and are essential
for the existence and operation of products that are used by people
every day. The committee defined mining to include metals such as
copper and iron--basic materials for all industrial nations--as well as
rare earths and other metals necessary for high tech, national defense,
and energy applications; industrial minerals such as potash used for
fertilizer and sodium carbonate (trona) for glass production; coal for
energy; and building materials including sand, gravel and crushed rock
for infrastructure including houses, highways, and airport
construction. In addition to the convenience and security offered by
these kinds of products, minerals also support the economic standard of
living in the United States. The USGS estimated that the overall value
added to the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) in 2014 by major
industries that consumed processed nonfuel mineral materials was $2.5
trillion. This contribution represented about 14.4 percent of the total
U.S. GDP of $17.4 trillion in 2014.
Although the committee's recommendations were applied across the
broad array of mining and energy sectors, the study committee noted a
particularly acute situation regarding age demographics in the
workforce and an accompanying shortage of STEM-capable, younger people
to fill upcoming and current openings in mining and mining engineering.
The USGS has monitored import reliance for decades and these data have
shown an increase in the number of minerals for which the United States
depends primarily or completely on foreign suppliers of the raw
material. Whether or not the minerals used every day in the United
States are mined domestically or abroad, the capacity to conduct
research and foster technological innovation are important. Without
them, the committee suggested, the Nation may not be able to anticipate
and react to potential restrictions in the mineral markets. A talent
crisis for professionals and workers is pending, and already exists for
faculty in mining and mining engineering, driven by an aging workforce
and international competition for talent. Both will precipitate
fundamental changes in the cost of talent at all skill and education
levels, but particularly for those positions requiring the most highly
trained or educated practitioners.
Mining disciplines in higher education were broadly defined in the
committee's report to include fields such as mining exploration,
mineral extraction and processing, metallurgy, extractive metallurgy,
economic geology, exploration geophysics, and geochemistry, among
others. The committee underscored the advantages of disciplinary
diversity whereby students could be trained and educated across
disciplinary lines to increase innovation and educate people with a
breadth of skills to address career challenges in a cyclical commodity
business.
Although the need for sustaining highly qualified university
faculty and graduates in mining and mining engineering is evident, the
capacity of U.S. universities to meet this need is severely challenged.
Some of the data available from the committee's report--and updated,
where possible, for this testimony--illustrate the nature of these
challenges. First, the number of accredited mining and mineral
engineering programs has declined from 25 in 1982 to 14 in 2007. The
number of faculty has also declined, from approximately 120 in 1984 to
70 in 2007. This translates into an average of 5 faculty at each of the
14 programs, each awarding 9 B.S. degrees per year per school. Over the
last 10 years, U.S. universities have produced fewer than 200 mining
engineers per year for employment across the full range of metals,
coal, industrial minerals, and building materials sectors, and in
academia and Federal and state agencies. Relative to other engineering
disciplines, these mining and mineral engineering programs are small
and may be more vulnerable to financial pressures experienced by
universities. Furthermore, the major proportion of the current
technological leadership in U.S. institutions of higher education is
approaching retirement without an obvious source of qualified
replacements. The study committee identified a critical role for U.S.
universities to develop graduate research programs in mining with a
goal of establishing global technological leadership.
One approach to reasserting U.S. leadership in mining fields
suggested by the committee was the establishment of several
interdisciplinary graduate Centers of Excellence in Earth Resources
Engineering at leading U.S. research universities. These kinds of
centers could help focus attention on the science and engineering
challenges presented by the mining industries and develop the
professional expertise that will be needed. These Centers could
efficiently coordinate the work of faculty and research facilities at
multiple universities and would complement the more classical programs
of the U.S. schools of mines. In addition, Centers of Excellence could
create an education system that responds to changes in the economy more
quickly and produces a more flexible, STEM-competent workforce. The
immediate goal in addressing the shortfalls of the current education
pipeline would be to re-establish the pipeline of talent and
particularly of qualified faculty in the 14 remaining mining schools in
the disciplines deemed to be `professions at risk': mining, extractive
metallurgy/mineral processing, and economic geology. The outcome from
such an approach was envisioned by the committee to develop students
equipped with multiple skills, who are prepared to adjust quickly to
industry requirements and job availability.
In my own professional experience, I have participated in a
consistent industry-academic initiative since 2002 to try to develop
more robust mining education programs and I'd like to briefly discuss a
few of these here as complements to the work done by the Academies
committee. In 2002, industry and the academic community recognized the
pending talent crisis in the U.S. mining sector. This realization led
to the formation of an Education Sustainability Task Force, where I
served as co-chairman under the auspices of the SME. At subsequent
workshops and symposia, leaders from industry and the academic
community, with participation from Federal agencies, established plans
to stabilize and advance minerals education at U.S. universities with a
special focus on funding to re-establish the `the pipeline for
qualified faculty.' These efforts continued in support of the
aforementioned congressional mandate in the Energy Policy Act of 2005
as well as the Academies report presented here. Consistent with
recommendations in the Academies report to ``provide financial and
leadership support to sustain critical teaching capacity until medium-
and long-term solutions can be developed and implemented,'' the effort
led to the formation and subsequent funding by industry of the SME
Education Sustainability Committee (ESC).
Since its inception in fall 2013, the ESC has sought to develop
actionable items to address the long-term challenges to the
sustainability of U.S. degree granting programs in Mining Engineering
and Mineral Processing/Extractive Metallurgy. Given its mission and the
implications of faculty shortages on the future viability of these
academic programs, the ESC has focused its efforts on ways of
rebuilding the faculty pipeline in order to address the growing absence
of viable tenure-track candidates to replace the aging workforce of
existing faculty at U.S. universities. The actionable items facilitated
by the ESC culminated in two complimentary initiatives: (1) the
development of 4-year graduate fellowships for qualified Ph.D. students
who are committed to pursuing careers in academia; and (2) the awarding
of Career Grants to assist new faculty in establishing research and
publication records necessary to achieve tenure and promotion. Thus
far, 3 Ph.D. Fellowships and 2 Career Development Grants have been
distributed and the solicitation for 2016 has been recently released.
When full participation of the Grant Program is reached in 2018, the
total financial commitment will be $1.477 million annually. This
program, chaired by Dr. Hugh Miller of the Colorado School of Mines,
will be discussed by others at this proceeding. The Academies report
recommended industry-funded programs, such as ESC, as a short-term
solution to a longer-term, stable solution realized by private-public
funding.
In summary, with a direct alignment to industry education and skill
requirements, the Academies report suggested that the success of mining
education programs can be measured by attainment of employment and
advancement opportunities in the mining industries. Expansion of
research programs at universities, with matching funding from industry,
could be directed toward specific outcomes such as: (1) advancing
technology or business processes to drive innovation and enrich
graduate and undergraduate education; and (2) developing university
faculty who work on the cutting edge of research to enhance the quality
of higher education. For mining and mining engineering, where the
supply of STEM-capable younger workers is inadequate to replace or
sustain requirements for workers in the private sector, in academia,
and in the Federal Government, establishing Centers of Excellence in
Earth Resources Engineering or similar technology- and innovation-
focused research and education programs could help re-establish a U.S.
leadership role in mining.
I would like to thank the committee for its time and interest in
this subject and I look forward to questions.
______
Mr. Lamborn. Thank you.
The Chair now recognizes Dr. Miller to testify.
STATEMENT OF HUGH MILLER, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF MINING
ENGINEERING, COLORADO SCHOOL OF MINES, GOLDEN, COLORADO
Dr. Miller. Great. Thank you. Chairman Lamborn, Mr.
Perlmutter, and members of the committee. I would like to
extend my sincere thanks for the opportunity to address the
challenges associated with the U.S. academic programs in mining
engineering. My name is Hugh Miller, and I am an Associate
Professor in the Mining Engineering Department at the Colorado
School of Mines. I have nearly 30 years of combined
professional experience in both industry and academia. I also
serve as the Chair of the Education Sustainability Committee
for the Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration.
As Mr. Freeman has addressed, one of the most ominous
threats facing the industry is the steady decline in the number
of accredited U.S. mining engineering programs over the last 30
years. Since these programs are largely responsible for
educating the next generation of mining professionals who will
assume technical and leadership positions in all sectors of the
industry and government, the loss of these mining programs will
have and have had a profound and long-lasting impact. The
crisis in talent has prompted action within the industry,
including groups like SME and the National Academies, which
have sought to quantify the reasons for the loss of these
academic programs, to find ways for the remaining programs to
remain stable, and to effectively increase the number of
graduates being produced.
Paramount among these challenges identified are shortages
in qualified candidates to replace retiring faculty and the
limited number of sources available to support academic
research. While seemingly independent, the issues associated
with faculty scarcity, research funding, the production of
graduates, and program instability are all inter-related.
Of significant concern is the absence of a viable means to
address the current number of faculty vacancies, as well as the
looming labor deficiencies associated with retirements over the
next decade, when more than half of the existing tenure and
tenure track faculty will be eligible for retirement within 5
years.
To put this in context, the average nationwide graduation
rate for mining Ph.D.s has historically been less than 15
annually, where the vast majority of these candidates who are
graduates are international students. Even if 25 percent of
these individuals had the interest of pursuing a career in
academia and possessed the skill sets necessary to be
successful as a tenure track faculty, we would fall far short
in the number of faculty needed to sustain the current
programs.
Furthermore, the overall success rate in developing faculty
from graduate school through tenure is extremely poor, with
some estimates as low as 25 percent. While this low success
rate is consistent with the belief of the national average
associated with other engineering disciplines, the limited size
of the candidate pool in mining compounds the current
difficulties in attracting a critical mass of faculty that are
needed for these programs.
SME is focusing its efforts on rebuilding what is often
referred to as the faculty pipeline, the mechanism through
which individuals acquire the experience, skill sets, and
qualifications necessary for employment at a university and
then to subsequently achieve tenure. These efforts include the
development of graduate fellowships for qualified Ph.D.
students who are committed to pursuing careers in academia, and
career development grants to assist new faculty in achieving
tenure and promotion.
The importance of research funding in higher education is
not well understood outside of academia. While research is
primarily used as a criteria for assessing faculty performance
and is intimately tied to promotion and tenure, it is also the
driver that enables programs to recruit and retain graduate
students, acquire and maintain laboratory equipment and
facilities for both education and research, and to publish.
In addition, with the significant reductions in state
funding over the last 10 years, most public universities have
become increasingly dependent upon research overhead to offset
the costs associated with operations and support staff. With
the exception of CDC NIOSH, which is solely focused on
occupational safety and health, there are very limited
opportunities available for Federal funding for mining research
at levels comparable to other science and engineering
disciplines.
In summary, mining education is at risk. The continued loss
of programs and the talent they generate will have a profound
impact on the Nation's economy and security. Without
significant near-term investment, academic programs in mineral
engineering will not have the capacity to produce the graduates
necessary to sustain industry demand.
There are opportunities, however, where the Federal
Government can make a substantive difference by investing in
meaningful research initiatives that encourage industry,
university, and government collaboration. Efforts to amend
SMCRA in order to provide support to mining schools is a
monumental step in the right direction and will have
significant long-term benefits.
I would like to thank the committee for the time and
interest in this very important topic, and it is a pleasure to
answer any questions you might have. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Miller follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hugh B. Miller, Associate Professor, Mining
Engineering Department, Colorado School of Mines
Chairman Lamborn, Ranking Member Lowenthal, and members of the
committee, I would like to extend my sincere thanks for the opportunity
to address you regarding the long-term challenges that threaten the
sustainability of U.S. Mining and Extractive Metallurgy/ Mineral
Processing degree granting programs. My name is Hugh Miller and I am an
Associate Professor in the Mining Engineering Department at the
Colorado School of Mines (CSM). I have nearly 30 years of combined
professional experience in both industry and academia. I also have the
pleasure of serving as the Chair of the Education Sustainability
Committee (ESC) for the Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration
(SME). The ESC is a committee comprised of academicians and experts in
higher education that was formed with the expressed mission to develop
specific actionable recommendations to address the daunting challenges
facing these academic programs.
I would also like to welcome you to the CSM Edgar Experimental
Mine: a unique laboratory focal to the development of undergraduate and
graduate students and cutting edge research in a wide variety of
mineral and earth related disciplines including Mining, Metallurgical,
and Geological Engineering, as well as Economic Geology, Underground
Construction and Tunneling, Explosives Engineering, Environmental
Engineering/Science, and Petroleum Engineering.
This morning you will hear testimony from several experts on the
importance of domestic mineral production as it pertains to our
economy, standard of living, and national security, and the dire
implications of disruptions to the production of these raw materials as
a consequence of future shortages in skilled labor and professional
talent. Contrary to public perception, and what's often portrayed on
television and in the media, mining and mineral exploration in the
developed World is pushing the limits in terms of technology and
innovation that extends from equipment and operating systems to
processes and environmental controls. Furthermore, due to the economic
pressures associated with declining ore value, increasing operating and
capital costs, and growing regulatory oversight, companies are heavily
dependent upon continuous improvement and the use of technology to
remain viable. This is particularly true in the mining of unit value
commodities, where U.S. operations are often at a competitive
disadvantage relative to foreign producers. As such, the future
viability of the U.S. Mining Industry and the domestic production of
raw minerals is directly dependent upon the availability of a skilled
workforce which must possess technical capabilities and competencies
that far exceed those needed a mere decade ago. This supposition is
supported by a workforce study produced by the National Academies in
2013 titled, ``Emerging Workforce Trends in the U.S. Energy and Mining
Industries: A Call to Action.'' Mr. Leigh Freeman served on the
Committee responsible for this critical study and will provide
testimony later this morning.
This study, and several others, identified significant threats to
the stability of this skilled workforce. The aging demographics of the
Mining Industry has long been a major source of concern that impacts
both hourly and salaried labor, where there are simply too few workers
available to adequately replace those that are retiring. In addition,
the increasing technical sophistication of job assignments and the
requisite competencies these younger workers must have represents
another challenge. The current labor pool does not have the skills and
education necessary to adequately meet these workforce needs now, or in
the future.
With regards to professional talent, one of the most ominous
threats facing the industry is the steady decline in the number of
accredited U.S. Mining Engineering programs over the last 30 years. In
1982, there were 25 degree granting programs in Mining Engineering.
Today, there are 14 accredited departments, of which only half can be
considered healthy. Of these, only 12 of these remaining programs offer
Ph.D. graduate degrees. Since these programs are largely responsible
for educating the next generation of professionals who will assume
technical and leadership positions in all sectors of the industry, the
loss of these engineering programs will have immediate and long-lasting
impacts. Beginning with the rise in commodity prices in the early
2000s, industry began to experience significant labor shortages in
technical and supervisory positions. With regards to entry level
engineers, there was insufficient capacity within the remaining mining
programs to provide the new talent that these companies desperately
needed. Driven by their constituencies, this ``talent crisis'' prompted
action within professional organizations, such as the Society for
Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration (SME), to quantify the causation
factors responsible for the deterioration and loss of these academic
programs and find ways for the remaining programs to become stable, and
effectively increase the number of graduates being produced. A great
deal of work was conducted by many throughout the decade to collect and
analyze the data and to formulate strategic plans intended to stabilize
and advance U.S. minerals education. These activities facilitated a
unique collaboration between industry, academia, and government that
resulted in numerous committees and task forces, workshops, symposiums,
and related research activities. The consequence of these efforts led
to formalized studies produced by the National Academies and SME,
papers written by distinguished members of the academic mining
community, and proposals regarding the promulgation of potential
legislation.
Building upon the contributions derived from these numerous
sources, SME leadership created the ESC in fall 2013 with the expressed
mandate to formulate meaningful, actionable recommendations to mitigate
the prevailing challenges that threaten the survival and long-term
viability of U.S. academic programs in Mining Engineering and Mineral
Processing/Extractive Metallurgy. The primary intent of the Committee
wasn't to rectify all the threats and challenges facing these programs,
but to focus on addressing those critical factors where interventions
could have a direct and substitutive impact. The first step was to
quantify the underlying factors jeopardizing the short-term and long-
term sustainability of the current programs. This was performed by
analyzing data and information previously collected through SME and
other sources, where potential deficiencies were assessed. Additional
information was then collected as deemed necessary. The Committee
attempted to develop causation factors that correlated with the trends
seen in the data. While the threats to specific academic programs vary
by university, there were commonalities inherent to each of these
degree programs. It's important to note that these challenges are
complex and interrelated, where many of the underlying threats
identified are symptomatic of larger changes that have occurred in
higher education and are difficult for an individual department or an
external entity (e.g., professional organization or a company) to
remedy or facilitate meaningful change. These issues are often driven
by state mandated university policies and institutional economics,
where student enrollment, the physical footprint, and cost per student
associated with mineral engineering programs greatly contribute to
their vulnerability. That said, the Committee was able to identify
several common, underlying factors that significantly contributed to
the current dilemma facing these mining programs. Paramount among these
challenges includes faculty scarcity and insufficient sources of
support for faculty research. While seemingly independent, these two
issues are intimately related.
faculty scarcity
As discussed previously, the labor shortages endemic to the Mining
Industry also extend to academia. Of immediate concern is the absence
of a viable means to address the current number of faculty vacancies as
well as the looming future labor deficiencies associated with
retirements over the next decade. Two fundamental studies conducted by
McCarter (2007) and Poulton (2012) analyzed the demographics of U.S.
mining engineering faculty and provided quantitative evidence of the
pending crisis.\1\, \2\ The results of these studies showed
that of the 74 tenured track faculty reported in the 2009/2010 academic
year, 100 percent of the senior faculty in the United States (39 mining
professors) will be eligible for retirement by 2020. Compounding this
situation is that few qualified professionals are entering academia as
new faculty, where only 13.5 percent were 40 years of age or younger.
These factors have resulted in 14 open faculty positions being reported
by 12 of the 14 U.S. Mining Department Heads in the 2009/2010 academic
year (Poulton, 2012). This study went on to estimate that an additional
18 faculty positions would be needed in 2015 and 21 more openings would
occur by 2020. These ominous predictions were largely substantiated at
the 2013 SME Annual Meeting in Denver, where a survey of the 14 mining
departments indicated that there were 18 faculty positions either
currently open or planned in the immediate future, including 5
department head positions.\3\ To put this in context, the average
nationwide graduation rate for Mining Ph.D.s has historically been less
than 15 annually, where a vast majority of these graduates are
international students. In the event that even 25 percent of these
individuals had an interest in pursuing a career in academia and
possessed the skill sets necessary to be successful as tenure-track
faculty, it would fall far short of the number of faculty needed to
sustain the current programs.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ McCarter, M. (2007), ``Mining faculty in the United States:
current status and sustainability,'' Mining Engineering, SME
Publication, September, pp. 28-33.
\2\ Poulton, M. (2012), ``Analysis of the Mining Engineering
Faculty Pipeline,'' 2012 SME Annual Meeting, Conference Proceedings,
February, pp. 1-9.
\3\ Department Survey, Mineral School Department Heads Meeting,
2013 SME Annual Meeting, Denver, CO, February 24, 2013.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The situation facing the six remaining U.S. Extractive Metallurgy/
Mineral Processing Departments appears to be even dire as a consequence
of the limited number of key faculty keeping these programs stable. An
examination of these programs reveals a population of approximately 22
tenured or tenure-track faculty, where 10 of these professors will be
eligible for retirement within the next 8 years.\4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ ``Federal Support for U.S. Mining Schools,'' Society for
Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration, Position Paper, 2014.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The problem associated with faculty scarcity is cumulative and
extends from recruiting appropriate candidates with a desire for
pursuing a career in academia and the ability to successfully complete
a Ph.D. degree, through the tenuous process of achieving tenure at a
given academic program. The overall success rate of developing faculty
from graduate school to tenure is extremely poor, with estimates as low
as 20 percent. While this low success rate is probably consistent with
the national average of other engineering disciplines, the very limited
candidate pool of potential faculty only compounds the current
difficulties associated with mineral engineering departments
maintaining a critical mass of faculty because of the low Ph.D.
graduation rates and the lack of qualified candidates.
To address this challenge in a meaningful way, the ESC recommended
to SME leadership, and its industry constituencies, that the
organization focus its efforts on several complimentary actions related
to rebuilding what is often referred to as the faculty pipeline. The
pipeline represents the mechanism through which individuals have
traditionally acquired the experience, skill sets, and qualifications
necessary for employment as tenured-track faculty at an accredited
university and then to go on to successfully earn tenure. As part of
these efforts, the ESC recommended the following actions: (1) the
development of a 4-year graduate fellowship for qualified Ph.D.
students who are committed to pursuing careers in academia; and (2) the
awarding of Career Grants intended to assist new faculty in
establishing research and publication records necessary to achieve
tenure and promotion. Both of these initiatives were strongly endorsed
by the SME and SME Foundation Boards. The structure, guidelines, and
budgets of these academic grants were formalized in 2014 and
fundraising efforts began shortly thereafter. The success of these
activities, and the necessary industry buy-in to financially support
them, led to the formal solicitation of applications in March 2015, and
the awarding of 3 Ph.D. Fellowships and 2 Career Development Grants in
August 2015. The 2016 solicitation for these grant programs was
released by SME in November. When full participation of the combined
grant programs is reached in 2018, the total annual financial
commitment will be $1.48 million and will be entirely supported from
donations derived by SME members and industry partners.
Beyond the Academic Grant programs, the ESC also outlined a full
agenda of activities and recommendations intended to address challenges
related to the availability of research funding, the recruiting of
qualified industry professionals into both M.S. and Ph.D. degree
programs, activities designed to mentor new faculty on topics critical
to tenure (e.g., teaching, research, publication, and service), and the
development of a campaign to educate industry on the realities and
threats facing higher education. These activities are active and on-
going.
research support
The importance of research funding to the health and welfare of an
academic program is often not well understood outside of academia, even
among a department's industry advisors and constituencies. While
research is usually a primary criterion used to assess faculty
performance and is intimately tied to promotion and tenure, it is also
the driver that enables programs to recruit and retain graduate
students, acquire and maintain laboratory equipment and facilities used
for both education and research, and generate peer-reviewed
publications. In addition, with the significant declines in state
funding, most public universities have become increasingly dependent on
research overheads to offset the costs associated with department
operations and support staff. While others have documented the
increasing reliance of universities on tuition and in-direct financial
support derived from research, I wanted to focus on the importance of
research as it pertains to the challenges facing faculty scarcity, the
redevelopment of the talent pipeline, and the overall health of
academic departments. With the exception of the large, multi-national
``majors'', most mining companies want to employ our graduates but see
little value in supporting funded research despite their dependence on
technology. Research, student enrollment, and the number and
productivity of faculty, however, are all interdependent. Put
succinctly, without research academic programs in minerals engineering
will simply cease to exit. Departments are generally evaluated by
university administrators relative to their performance as measured by
criteria such as research volume, scholarly work (publications),
student credit hours, and the number of Ph.D. students that are
produced. University resources (financial, space, and personnel) are
subsequently distributed to individual departments on the basis of
these criteria. By their very nature, mineral engineering departments
are generally small, high cost programs with a significant footprint as
a consequence of laboratories. These characteristics make them highly
vulnerable. As such, research provides the catalyst for promoting
stability and growth by creating the means to attract students,
construct and operate labs, and justify the hiring and retention of
faculty. The pipeline that recruits and funds graduate students,
provides opportunities to hire new faculty and enables them to achieve
tenure, and hence, teach and mentor undergraduate students, is all
facilitated by research.
With the closure of the U.S. Bureau of Mines in 1996, it's become
increasingly difficult for faculty to find Federal sources to support
mining related research. With the exception of CDC NIOSH, which is
solely focused on occupational safety and health, there are very
limited opportunities available to fund mining research at levels
comparable to other science and engineering disciplines. Furthermore,
access to government and industry sponsored research is often tied to
faculty expertise and program facilities, which make it very difficult
for new faculty or departments that are under financial stress or below
critical mass in terms of faculty. As such, the development of new
Federal sources of research funding is critical to the well-being of
current and future academic programs in Mining and Extractive
Metallurgy/Mineral Processing.
In summary, mineral education is at risk. The continued loss of
these programs, and the talent they generate, will have a profound
impact on the Nation's economy and security. Without immediate
intervention and significant near-term investment, academic programs in
mineral engineering will not have the capacity to produce the graduates
necessary to sustain industry demand. Issues related to faculty
shortages and limited availability of Federal research support are
interrelated and among the most significant threats facing these
programs. There are opportunities, however, where the Federal
Government can make a substantive difference by investing in meaningful
research initiatives that encourage industry/university collaborations
and provide needed support for graduate students and promote faculty
development and tenure. Efforts to amend the Surface Mining Control and
Reclamation Act of 1977 (H.R. 3734) in order to provide support to
mining schools is a monumental step in the right direction and will
undoubtedly have significant, long-term impacts that will benefit the
Nation. I would like to thank the committee for its time and interest
in this important topic and it would be a pleasure to answer any
questions you might have. Thank you.
Mr. Lamborn. OK. Thank you.
The Chair now recognizes Ms. Nuttbrock to testify.
STATEMENT OF NANCY NUTTBROCK, PE, ASSOCIATE/TEXAS REGIONAL
LEADER, BRIERLEY ASSOCIATES, HOUSTON, TEXAS
Ms. Nuttbrock. Chairman Lamborn and members of the
committee, thank you for the opportunity to offer my testimony
in support of your bill today.
Please indulge me for just a minute while I tell you a
little bit about my background. It will tie into my remarks. I
graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Geological Engineering
from South Dakota School of Mines back in 1996. While in
college, I worked as an intern for two summers for Phelps Dodge
in Morenci, Arizona, which at that time was one of the world's
largest copper mines. After graduating, I worked for Pacificorp
at their surface coal mine in Centralia, Washington. Then, I
worked for Halliburton in Wyoming, and then relocated to Denver
to pursue my Master's degree in Mining Engineering here at the
Colorado School of Mines.
While pursuing my degree, I focused on tunnel design and
was introduced to Brierley Associates, an engineering firm
offering all varieties of tunnel and shaft design, and heavy
civil underground construction. I worked with Brierley on
tunnel projects across the United States and internationally
for the next 5 years. Then, I left my friends at Brierley and
headed back to Wyoming. For the next 6 years, I served as the
Deputy Director for the Wyoming School Facilities Commission,
which proved to be a unique and beneficial tangent to my
training in the earth sciences. Following this, for the next 3
years I served as the Administrator, and then the Deputy
Director, for Wyoming's Department of Environmental Quality.
This position really took me back to my mining engineering
roots. I ran a program there that regulated all the mining
activity across the state. That included coal, trona,
bentonite, uranium, sand and gravel, just to name a few. Then,
about a year ago, I left Wyoming to rejoin my friends again at
Brierley and to open our office in Houston, Texas.
This bill is important for a lot of reasons, but from my
perspective, it is particularly important to states like
Wyoming with a robust mining economy. The regulatory program
for Wyoming's DEQ is charged with not only permitting the
mining operation and ensuring that reclamation is successful,
but everything in between. Mining operators are required to
submit detailed mine plans to incorporate into their permits,
which involve all aspects of a mine's operation. With that, now
also consider that Wyoming's program is charged with regulating
all forms of mining, each dramatically different.
Consider a traditional open pit mine, where you would see
the largest coal mines in the Powder River Basin, to the rare
elements mines, to large and small sand and gravel operations.
Now also consider underground mining, much like we are in
today, the largest trona mines in the country, and underground
coal gasification. Also consider in situ uranium mining. These
are all dramatically different mining techniques, and some of
Wyoming's operations are the biggest in the world.
Wyoming's program employed about 45 Earth Science
professionals--geologists, range scientists, vegetation and
reclamation experts, soil scientists, hydrologists, and
engineers. These professionals are extremely capable and well-
respected in their fields of expertise.
In order to regulate the wide spectrum of mine types that I
just described, each of those professionals must learn the
technicalities of each operation assigned to them. For example,
a soil scientist might be required to regulate an in situ
uranium mine. To do that, each person learns from their peers,
to a large degree they are self-taught, and they learn from the
mine operators they are entrusted to regulate.
Wyoming is very fortunate, and perhaps even a little rare,
in that the mining industries and the regulatory entities
honestly collaborate toward a balance between environmentally
sound techniques and profitable operations.
So, while it is true that Federal funding is needed to
conduct research at mining schools, and new professors need to
conduct research for tenure, the cycle still lacks a source of
students. Simply stated, when contemplating the age-old
question, ``What do you want to be when you grow up? '', very
few high school students will answer ``a mining engineer.'' If
there was not a mining engineer in your family or if your dad
was not one, the odds are you are not going to know what a
mining engineer is.
Recently, the president of Brierley Associates asked me,
``Nancy, when you were 8 years old, what did you want to be? ''
He chuckled at my response. I told him I wanted to be a truck
driver, because that is the way I thought I could see the world
and travel.
I will leave you with this friendly recommendation from a
person who had no idea what a mining engineer was. Include a
mechanism to engage high school students, and especially those
students who would not otherwise be exposed to mining
engineering as an exciting career choice.
Thank you for your efforts to bolster professionals in our
industry and for listening to me today.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Nuttbrock follows:]
Prepared Statement of Nancy Nuttbrock, Associate & Texas Regional
Leader, Brierley Associates
introduction
Thank you for the opportunity to offer my testimony in support of
H.R. 3734. My name is Nancy Nuttbrock.
background
I graduated with a B.S. in Geological Engineering from South Dakota
School of Mines and Technology in 1996. While in college, I worked as
an intern for two summers for Phelps Dodge in Morenci, AZ, at that
time, one of the world's largest copper mines. After graduating, I
worked for Pacificorp at their surface coal mine in Centralia, WA.
Then, I worked for Halliburton in Wyoming. I relocated to Denver to
pursue my M.S. in Mining Engineering here at the Colorado School of
Mines. While pursing my Masters in Mining Engineering-Earth Systems
Technologies, (aka: tunnel design), I was introduced to Brierley
Associates, an engineering firm focusing on all varieties of tunnel and
shaft design, and heavy civil underground construction. I worked with
Brierley on tunnel projects across the United States and
internationally for 5 years. Then, I left my friends at Brierley and
headed back to Wyoming. For the next 6 years, I served as the Deputy
Director for the Wyoming School Facilities Commission, which proved to
be a unique and beneficial tangent to my training in the earth
sciences. Following this, for the next 3 years, I served as the
Administrator, and then the Deputy Director, for Wyoming's Department
of Environmental Quality. This position took me back to my geology and
mining engineering roots--I administered Wyoming's program that
regulated all mining activities across the state, including coal,
trona, bentonite, uranium, and sand and gravel, to name a few. The
program employed approximately 45 earth science professionals:
geologists, range and reclamation scientists, hydrologists, and
engineers. Then, about a year ago, I left Wyoming to rejoin my friends
at Brierley Associates, and open our office in Houston, TX.
from my perspective
This bill is important for many reasons, but based on my
background, it is particularly important to states like Wyoming with a
robust mining economy. The regulatory program for Wyoming DEQ is
charged with not only permitting the mining operation, and ensuring
that reclamation is successful, but also everything in between. Mining
operators are required to submit detailed mine plans to incorporate
into their permits, which involve all aspects of a mine's operation.
With that, now also consider that the Wyoming's program is charged with
regulating all forms of mining that differ dramatically:
traditional surface mines (ranging from the world's
largest coal mines in the Powder River Basin to rare
elements to small sand and gravel operations);
underground mines (including underground coal mines,
underground coal gasification, and large trona mines); and
in situ uranium mining.
Some of these mines are the largest of their kind in the world.
The geologists, the reclamation and vegetation experts, the
hydrologists and the engineers employed to run Wyoming's program are
extremely capable professionals in their respective fields of
expertise. In order to regulate a wide spectrum of mine types, each
professional must learn the technicalities of each operation assigned
to them. To do so, each person learns from their peers, are self-
taught, and/or learns from the mine operators and mine personnel they
are entrusted to regulate. Wyoming is fortunate, and perhaps even rare,
in that the mining industries and regulatory entities collaborate
honestly toward a balance between environmentally sound techniques and
profitable operations.
recommendation
While it is true that Federal funding is needed to conduct research
at mining schools, and new professors need to conduct research for the
tenure process so they can educate the next generation of mining and
mineral experts, this cycle still lacks the source of students.
Simply stated, very few high school students contemplating the age-
old question ``What do you want to be when you grow up? '' will answer
`a Mining Engineer'. The President of Brierley Associates recently
asked me: ``When you were 8 years old, what did you want to be? '' He
chuckled at my response: I wanted to be a truck driver, because I
thought that was the only way I could travel and see the country.
Please consider this: include a mechanism to engage high school
students and especially those students who would not otherwise be
exposed to mining engineering as an exciting career choice.
conclusion
Thank you for your efforts to bolster professionals in our
industry, and for listening to me today.
______
Mr. Lamborn. Thank you.
I also thank all the panel members for their testimony.
I would like to remind Members that Committee Rule 3(d)
imposes a 5-minute limit on questions.
I will now recognize Members for any questions they may
wish to ask the witnesses. We will start with subcommittee
members, then full committee members, then Members of the
Congress who are not on the committee.
The first question is to anyone who wants to weigh in. In
your opinion, do you believe that the Gold King Mine spill
might have been prevented if EPA had had a qualified mining
engineer on the site who was involved with the remediation
process?
Mr. Freeman. I strongly believe all problems are solved
with talent, and I think the more talent you can have and can
bring to bear, both in terms of the discipline expertise that
people have, as well as just pure talent, it certainly could
have benefited from that.
With respect to people that would be employed by the
Federal agencies, I think there is a real challenge there,
because the Federal agencies have the same demographic
challenges as the industry has, and probably even more so. They
also typically have pay compensation levels that are
substantially below the industry. So, I think increasing the
talent in all those agencies, including the talent that could
be brought by mining engineers, would have been very important.
Mr. Lamborn. Dr. Miller or Ms. Nuttbrock?
Dr. Miller. Yes, I totally agree. The issues are technical,
and to have an appreciation of the underground environment,
understanding geo-mechanics, rock mechanics, soil mechanics,
that is what mining engineers do. The protocols that are in
place, there are best industry practices that are associated
with that which were not followed.
I am a huge advocate for eliminating some of these issues,
to integrate technology that is being used in the industry
currently, and to collaborate with government agencies.
Ms. Nuttbrock. Sure. I will just comment by saying in
Wyoming there was a lot of effort put toward that collaborative
nature. It is the mining operators working with the regulatory
community, and a lot of times the mine operators themselves are
telling the regulators how this is supposed to work, how this
approach is supposed to work, in the technicalities of a
particular mine.
Like I said, an in situ uranium mine is dramatically
different than a surface coal mine. In a lot of instances in
Wyoming, for example, we had to regulate a mine's operation,
and you needed everybody from a soil scientist, to the
vegetation experts, to the hydrologists, and the geologists--
you needed that entire spectrum. But it would have been very
helpful to have someone on staff, mining engineers on staff,
who understood the full cradle-to-grave operation of a mine.
Dr. Miller. It is also about risk assessment. If you do not
understand the dynamics of how those mines were built and
designed, it is hard to figure out what the risks are.
Mr. Lamborn. Dr. Miller, it has been suggested that maybe
the bill should be expanded to include not only mining and
metallurgy engineering but also metallurgy. Can you tell me
what goes on in the Colorado School of Mines and how that might
make the bill a better bill?
Dr. Miller. Within SME, we actually incorporated mining
engineering and efforts with mineral processing and extracting
metallurgy, and the reason for that is the programs associated
with extracting metallurgy are even in more dire shape than the
mining programs.
There currently are six departments across the country
employing some 22 faculty. Of those 22 faculty, 10 are eligible
for retirement within 2 years. So, if you look at the dynamics
of those programs, we will lose them if there is not some sort
of interventions that are taking place.
Mr. Lamborn. Mr. Freeman, a minute ago you touched on the
need for better representation in the Federal workforce by
trained mining engineers. Could you elaborate on that just a
little bit more? I had asked you in the context of the Gold
King Mine, but just in general, what would be your advice?
Mr. Freeman. The advice is first just to have a very strong
cadre of talent within those Federal agencies. The Academies'
report recommended improving those methods within the Federal
agencies for recruitment, development, and retention of talent.
The other thing I would add personally, is I am very
involved in working with communities in the mining industry,
and increasingly the citizenry is concerned about that
interface between natural resource recovery and reclamation.
There are going to be increasing pressures on the Federal
talent who stand at that interface. I think we need to try to
make sure we have a strong cadre of talent there.
Mr. Lamborn. OK. Thank you.
I will now recognize Representative Hardy for his
questions.
Mr. Hardy. Thank you.
Mr. Freeman, in your testimony you talked about the steady
decline in the number of U.S. mining engineers over the last 30
years. What role, if any, have the universities played in this
effect?
Mr. Freeman. I would have nightmares if I was trying to
manage state institutions in the context of the access they
have to dollars. It is a really difficult problem, and one of
the challenges there is that the metrics for a lot of the
universities are research dollars and numbers of Ph.D.s that
are granted. All 14 of the mining programs are state-funded
programs; so, there is a lot of pressure on trying to manage
the university-level budget.
In that, when we graduate a very small number of mining
engineers, we do not need a huge number. In total, in the
United States in the last 40 years, we have graduated 12,000.
If you spread that over 40 years, that is 300 a year. That is
not a lot to amortize the cost of the minerals education in
engineering at the university level. It is one of the most
expensive education programs on these campuses.
One of the important and critical components of the erosion
of that broad support that we had is it is just a very
expensive program to have. So, the bill that you are
contemplating here and in support of is to put the research
behind that so the universities can justify this effort. As a
result, we have about half the programs that we started with 20
years ago.
Mr. Hardy. Thank you.
Ms. Nuttbrock, has the lack of mining engineers played a
role over the years in the process of getting permitting done
for mining projects on Federal lands? Has that been a cause and
effect? And if so, can you elaborate a little bit.
Ms. Nuttbrock. Oh, certainly. I do believe that there is a
cause and effect relationship there. Take, for example,
underground coal gasification. New technology in Wyoming, just
a year ago when I left the DEQ, they had just approved a permit
for underground coal gasification. There are constantly bright
minds thinking about better ways to extract the resource and
less environmentally damaging ways of extracting the resource.
If we had people working on the regulatory side of things who
were up to speed with those up and coming technologies and the
research that is going on in the universities, that would
absolutely put state programs up to par and able to react and
review documents more quickly and process permits more quickly.
Mr. Hardy. Another question for you. The regulators you
discussed that are basically relying on the operators
themselves for the technology and an understanding of what
their job is supposed to be, do we sometimes at the Federal
level forget what our obligations are and who we are working
with, that we are partners?
Ms. Nuttbrock. I would like to comment on that first, if I
could. And again, Wyoming is a wonderful place. The mining
environment, the political environment, and the people who are
working in Wyoming in the mining industries are very much
engaged with the regulatory community as well; and I mentioned
that that might be a little bit rare. In working with my former
colleagues out in the Eastern region, it is definitely a little
rare because maybe that was not the case. We are working in
lockstep with the people who are regulating and mining.
But it is true, yes. For rare elements resources and,
again, the new technologies, we are learning together and we
are learning from the operators.
Mr. Hardy. I have a quick question to Dr. Miller.
Dr. Miller, the shortage of mining engineers, can you put
in perspective what the potential crisis could be over the
coming years to our economy, to the country at large?
Dr. Miller. It is huge, and it is kind of a vicious circle.
If you do not have the faculty to teach and those faculty are
not capable of getting the research required to get tenure,
then the academic programs themselves suffer. They do not have
the financial or the manpower, the talent to produce
undergraduates. Put straightforward, a major talent crisis that
occurred for undergraduates in the early 2000s, there was just
nobody to hire. These operations are going to experience
tremendous challenges associated with that. They are going to
go abroad, or they are going to bring international people
here. There is no other solution to it. And it is a huge
security issue.
Mr. Hardy. Thank you. My time has expired.
Mr. Lamborn. Chairman Bishop.
Mr. Bishop. Thank you.
Dr. Miller, let me start with you. I am an old teacher,
Liberal Arts though. People always talk about how it is
important to have people working on the ground in the business
world. But if I understand what you are telling me, there are
few people who are graduating as mining Ph.D.s, few of those
want to become teachers, and few of those who actually want to
become teachers can get through the tenure process; and that
becomes like a death spiral.
Dr. Miller. That is exactly right.
Mr. Bishop. So, what we are talking about is we need as a
government to try to increase people to go into the industry,
to go into the Federal workforce, but also who can become
teachers. So, the lessons that are taught in the classroom,
that becomes extremely significant.
Dr. Miller. Without question, and you have hit it right on
the head. It is a spiral. It comes with research dollars, and
it comes through the education; and the working degree in the
mining industry is typically still the undergraduate degree.
So, to bring qualified people into the graduate programs is a
struggle, particularly with the salaries that are being made in
industry.
Mr. Bishop. OK. So a lot of the needs we are going to have
in future research with you will be in mine reclamation.
Dr. Miller. Yes.
Mr. Bishop. And that has to be done in the classroom? So
how is what happens in the classroom so significant not only
for the Federal workforce but also for the industry workforce?
Dr. Miller. One of the great things about mining is we do a
lot in environments at actual mines or in laboratory
facilities. We have a unique collaboration with industry in
that we do an awful lot of our teaching at industrial
facilities. The concept is we reinforce engineering principles
and fundamentals at sites, and that is where that collaboration
between government, industry, and academia will work
effectively. Federal grants, we do that work at industry sites,
and the promulgation of the knowledge base comes back to
government as well.
Mr. Bishop. Mr. Freeman, let me ask you a quick question.
We had another hearing down in New Orleans, at that time a
program at LSU. We talked about how fewer people are going into
the engineering process, but a lot more are going into the
regulatory stream, to become regulators. It would be my
intention, though, that if you are talking about regulators on
the Federal side dealing with mine safety, that this kind of
background would be essential.
Do you also think it would be profitable for somebody who
is going to become a regulator to have some practical
experience, like you did, in the industry before they become a
regulator?
Mr. Freeman. A real good example, and we in the industry
talk about this, the idea of having a mine inspector who does
not have industry experience would be really frightening. You
really need that foundation of industry experience to be able
to go forward.
Mr. Bishop. But they have to have the academic background
before they get that. There are several steps you have to go
through.
Mr. Freeman. It is just like with any stepping of careers.
You would like ideally 10 years' worth of really good practical
experience in the field and then be able to employ that in the
regulatory environment.
Mr. Bishop. So, for both of you, the tenure process is
really dependent upon grants to fund research. That says
something negative about the tenure process, but it is the
reality which we face.
Let me ask you, Ms. Nuttbrock, obviously to get somebody in
the Ph.D. program, you have to have an undergraduate program.
To get somebody there, you have to have somebody in public
schools, high school and K-12, who is excited about it.
Oftentimes, people going into engineering, there has to be
something that is really exciting or a chance to succeed and do
something really cool, and we find that in other engineering
areas.
How do we get kids in K-12 to become excited about starting
this process?
Mr. Freeman. You bring them in.
Ms. Nuttbrock. Thank you for asking that, because I think
that is the missing link in this whole cycle. We still need to
get kids interested in this industry. From talking with a
number of you today, I know that the outreach program here at
the Edgar Mine is much larger than I thought it was. But that
is the fact, and I wonder if there is a mechanism in your bill
that you could write in to say that with the Federal funding,
it would require some collaboration with high schools and
bringing them underground. Or in my industry, what kid would
not like riding on the back of a TBM?
Mr. Bishop. That may not be the vehicle to accomplish that,
but it is something we need to look at.
I only have 10 seconds left, but sometime you have to tell
me what tunnel design actually means. I don't have enough time
to get into it.
Mr. Lamborn. If the Chairman will wait----
Mr. Bishop. Do you put some carpeting down----
[Laughter.]
Mr. Lamborn. You can answer that question.
Ms. Nuttbrock. Sure. My background is geological
engineering. We put tunnels in for highways, railroads. You
drove through some tunnels coming up here. Water conveyance
tunnels, I do a lot of those, and they are becoming huge in
diameter. In Dallas right now, there is due next week a 40-
foot-diameter flood control tunnel structure, 40-foot diameter
for 5 miles long. So, flood control, a lot of different
utilities, and our aging infrastructure in our cities is a huge
market.
Tunnel design is looking at the geology, looking at the
groundwater, looking at the type of tunnel, looking at the
excavation methodology, what you are going to do with the muck,
how you are going to support that opening, how you are going to
tie it in to the rest of the utilities.
You would not believe what is under the city in terms of
the utilities. It is just phenomenal, and that is the beauty of
our industry. It is underground, out of sight, and out of mind;
and that is kind of the way we like it. It is a fascinating
industry, and it ties into mining engineering hand-in-hand.
Mr. Bishop. Thank you.
Mr. Lamborn. Thank you.
Representative Perlmutter.
Mr. Perlmutter. Thank you. The other Members of this
hearing have asked all the right questions. I am not sure I
have any for the panelists. Thank you very much.
Obviously, here in Colorado, and it also applies to the
Rocky Mountain West--Wyoming, Utah, Nevada--we love our
outdoors. That is why we are here. We enjoy such an abundance
of natural resources that are so necessary to everything we do
in commerce, whether it is construction, energy, or technology,
the rare earth minerals in my phone, all these kinds of things;
but we always like to be outside climbing, skiing, fishing,
whatever it might be.
What I see, and the importance of this bill that
Congressman Hardy has proposed, is we have to have the best and
the brightest to continue to be able to build these tunnels, to
extract the minerals that we need for commerce, and to do it in
a way that over time is environmentally sound, as you said, so
that we can continue to enjoy our outdoors.
Mr. Freeman, let me start with you. In terms of this bill,
you had language, ``the importance of collaborative efforts
among government, industry, and educational institutions to
create and support new approaches in higher education that can
lead to a range of mining and energy jobs.'' Do you think this
bill helps us get that done?
Mr. Freeman. Absolutely.
Mr. Perlmutter. How?
Mr. Freeman. Well, it builds a foundation for research that
will support the universities, the education, and will support
the tenure track of faculty members. I think all of us, going
to college, were inspired by our ability to make a difference
with the educations we have had and those professors that we
learned under as mentors. I think they become a real critical
component to that; and any damaging of that pipeline for those
people, damages the entire U.S. economy in the end.
Mr. Perlmutter. Absolutely. The collaborative piece of
this, which you talked about in your testimony--let's go back
to the Gold King Mine disaster that we talked about a few
minutes ago. Obviously, water was involved, the design of the
several different mines out there. I mean, this is very
complicated stuff, and I see a place both for the university to
come in as kind of a consultant, but you want to have people
who have the right qualifications to deal with the different
tangents of the thing.
Ms. Nuttbrock, could you comment on that?
Ms. Nuttbrock. I can. It is almost as if, in order to
regulate to the extent that we would like to, you have to have
an infinite understanding of the history of that mine, how it
was built over the course of many decades. The retention
systems and the water control systems are often aging, perhaps,
and they need to be replaced. It is almost as if, in order to
regulate, you need to know the history of the mine and how it
has been operating. It has probably changed hands from one
operator to the next over the course of its life, and they may
have taken different design approaches. It is complex, and it
is not as simple, I don't think, as having more mining
engineers on the regulatory side. It is that collaborative
piece.
You have a mining engineer on the regulatory side working
with the mining engineer on the operator side, and they know
that mine inside and out. When one of them says there is a
potential for that toe to fail, they know what they are talking
about, and they can go back and look at the design records and
the as-builts for those structures and understand if that is,
in fact, a failure point.
But, it is that collaborative piece, without question.
Mr. Perlmutter. A couple more seconds.
Dr. Miller, we are in the Edgar Mine. As a professor, do
you bring students here? Do they benefit by actually being
here? Is this something that this legislation might be able to
provide some resources to you to continue to develop a program?
Dr. Miller. That would be fantastic. The unique element of
the Edgar Mine--and it is just not solely limited to mining
engineering. We teach, I think, parts of 19 courses in 6
different academic majors that are done here. One of the
reasons this facility is great, is it allows you to apply
engineering fundamentals on a project-oriented type of class.
The students can actually see the dynamics of what they are
doing, and it is a unique venue.
But the biggest part of this is, it is about solving open-
ended problems. It is about safety ethic. It is about the
dynamics of what it takes to be a good, competent engineer; and
you can only learn that in a unique environment like this. It
is a great place.
Mr. Perlmutter. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I yield back.
One last question for Dr. Miller. Do any of the 13 other
mining schools in the country have a mine like this as part of
their classroom experience?
Dr. Miller. Yes. Out of the 14, there are 4 universities
that have school mines, the University of Arizona, Montana
Tech, and the University of Missouri at Rolla, which is now
Missouri Science and Technology.
Mr. Perlmutter. Excellent.
Mr. Lamborn. I thank the witnesses for their valuable
testimony, and the Members for their questions. The members of
the committee may have some additional questions for the
witnesses, and we ask that you respond to these in writing.
Under Committee Rule 4(h), the hearing record will be held open
for 10 business days for these responses.
I, and the other Members, want to thank the Colorado School
of Mines for opening up this facility and for their work in
making this available today. I want to thank the committee
staff for all of their work so that we could take advantage of
this unique venue.
Before I conclude, I would ask unanimous consent that we
enter into the record the letters of support for this
legislation from the following schools: the University of
Alaska at Fairbanks, Colorado School of Mines, Missouri
University of Science and Technology, Montana Tech, University
of Nevada at Reno, New Mexico Tech, Penn State, Southern
Illinois University at Carbondale, South Dakota School of
Mines, and West Virginia University, as well as the Nevada
Division of Minerals.
If there is no objection, so ordered.
If there is no further business, without objection, the
committee stands adjourned.
[Applause.]
[Whereupon, at 11:13 a.m., the committee was adjourned.]
[LIST OF DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD RETAINED IN THE COMMITTEE'S
OFFICIAL FILES]
Comment left at Hearing in Support from Eddie Kochman of
Northglenn, Colorado
Letters in Support:
Benjamin M. Statler College of Engineering and
Mineral Resources, West Virginia University
Colorado School of Mines
Illinois Association of Aggregate Producers
Illinois Coal Association
Illinois Mining Institute
Mackay School of Earth Sciences and Engineering,
University of Nevada, Reno
Missouri University of Science and Technology
Montana Tech
New Mexico Tech
Penn State College of Earth and Mineral Sciences
South Dakota School of Mines & Technology
Southern Illinois University
State of Nevada Commission on Mineral Resources
University of Alaska Fairbanks College of
Engineering & Mines
[all]