Every Wildflower is Sacred, Even 'Buckwheat'

It’s my view that the Environmental Protection Act goes too far and allows every vital major energy-producing and -extraction project to be bollixed up by those who hate humanity. Those who wish to save every rare weed, snail darter and smelt attribute sacredness and need to "preserve" everything except humans.

Lithium is critical to electric car batteries because despite its light weight it can store lots of energy and can be recharged. In Nevada, which is rich in underground lithium resources -- resources urgently needed for the growth of mandated electric vehicles and renewables -- we see what Forbes calls the “environmentalist/anti-development movement” moving to halt lithium production in the U.S., an extractive process , not very different from those used in coal mining , oil drilling and fracking.

Lithium: better than "buckwheat."

At this time, lithium is mined mostly in Australia, Chile, China and Argentina. If we mine more here we could reduce the cost of electric vehicles. If we don’t, we’ll be importing it, mostly from China. President Biden proposes offering a rebate for consumers who trade in gas-powered vehicles for electric cars, without, as I’ve noted, doing one thing to increase electric power generation.

Now the Administration has gone even further in initiating action which could halt construction of a lithium mine in Nevada. This mine would create 700-900  jobs, and is expected to produce enough lithium to power “hundreds of thousands of electric vehicles annually.” Under the Endangered Species Act, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has just determined that it will list a 6-inch tall wildflower -- Tiehm’s buckwheat -- as a threatened or endangered species, determining that a company’s proposal to salvage the remaining plants by transplanting them elsewhere was an uncertain move, because “current research indicates that Tiehm’s buckwheat is a soil specialist, that adjacent unoccupied sites are not suitable for all early life-history stages, and there has been no testing or multiyear  monitoring on the feasibility of successfully transplanting the species.”  

 The government has until September 30 to issue a formal rule on protecting this wildflower after which there will be a 60-day public comment period. There is only one other large-scale lithium mine in the U.S., also in Nevada,  and it  has been operable for about six decades. Another one being planned in Nevada at the largest known lithium deposit in the U.S. also is facing legal challenges.

The  challenge in this case is by a non-profit outfit called the Center for Biological Diversity, which first came to public attention when it fought to limit logging in old growth timberland to preserve the Mexican spotted owl. If memory serves, it was established subsequently that the spotted owl  was better protected by removing its competitors, barred owls, from areas where the spotted owl was in decline.

Since one of the greatest dangers to this wildflower is the rodents that eat it, maybe they should eradicate the mice to save it.