"In addition to considering public comments, FWS is required by the ESA to make a decision based upon the best available scientific date. FWS is expected to make a final decision in September 2022, as agreed upon by prior court stipulation ..."
You need to read the fine print of announcements released by the companies you invest in.
Las Vegas Sun Newspaper (4 Feb, 2022)
"Unless the Fish and Wildlife Service reverses course because of new information, the plant will be declared endangered in September based on a court order and the agency's final listing rule..."
"The critical habitat designation also identifies specific habitat that “may require special management and protection” — in this case "to address mineral development, road development and (off-highway vehicle) activity..."
(End of Las Vegas Sun quote from the FWS)
There are many other references that you can access with a simple search on Google, right up to articles published on 5th June, 2022. Do the research.
What you have is September for the FWS decision.
And then you have up to another year for the BLM, providing their are no law suits, or appeals to the US Federal Court of Appeals - unfortunately though, there will be appeals.
For instance, quote ("Basin and Range Watch, meanwhile, are suing to stop construction of the Thacker Pass Lithium Mine in northwestern Nevada"), and they are also awaiting on the 2022/23 decisions of the FWS and BLM before deciding to take similar action for Rhyolite Ridge.
Jeeezzz ... this is frustrating. Sometimes I seem to be doing all the research, while some people bury their heads in the sand and just believe company announcements.
Please do the research, and properly search USA government (federal and state) journal releases.
C'mon guys, do the friggin' research yourself, and just be honest.
I used to be a research consultant for the university of WA, so I can get access to all this stuff, but so can most of the public if they decide to take the time, think laterally, find the right sources, follow the leads from one source to the other, and be a bit creative with your search thinking.
Follow the conservation groups in the articles, list the scientist names, look them up, see who they work for and what groups they belong to, go to those organisations, look up their recent releases, then look up the names of their lawyers, see what cases their lawyers have recently filed in the USA, note the names of the state and federal departments involved, go read their releases and legal results. Search the USA federal and state court systems, you will notice that in the USA legal records are publicly available in many cases unlike Australia, so you can see in some states all the crimes that certain individuals have been convicted for.
Look, I don't want to give a UWA research studies 101 course here, otherwise I could write a hundred pages on how to acquire secretive or limited information, but just think about it, you can do it yourself with a little creative considered thought on how to get difficult-to-access information. A lot of these groups also have threads on twitter, instagram, facebook and private web pages, and university pages, and a lot of other places (the dark web).
Here is the bottom line of what is probably going to happen here.
The FWS release a decision in September, and it's in favour of the Buckwheat as endangered.
The next day, INR release a statement saying they always thought this would be the case, and they have factored all of that into their plans.
Now we have a stand-off, as you can see from plenty of documents, the conservationists want a 1 mile exclusion zone, and INR want only one-tenth of that - so we have a problem that is effectively just beginning.
INR will apply to the BLM.
The BLM will undertake further investigations, probably both public comment and scientific expert investigations, and to calm everyone down, they'll probably take a year or so to compile these - yawn.
If the BLM allow a mine in support of the limited INR Tiehm recommended exclusion zone, then the conservationists and the 20 or so groups supporting them (look them up), will do exactly what they have done currently with the Thacker Pass lithium mine in north west Nevada, and raise a legal suit against INR to stop the mine. This will be subject to multiple legal battles because of appeals over many years, moving from the lower courts to the higher courts.
There is another interesting thing here, that may work in the company's favour. Sibanye have some interesting allies in the USA senate (hint: republicans) - you can find them if you hunt hard enough (hint: under FOI information look for donations to election campaigns). Sibanye are globally wealthy and contribute to election funds all over the planet. It goes deep. As usual, nothing is what it seems on the surface. I'm following up on some of this research.
Some say that in the USA, there is only one song that sums up the truth of anything, and only one value that will cause anything to succeed, including anything passed by the senate, and together with Sibanye, it may be the one thing that gets Rhyolite Ridge over the top.
(Randy Newman - YouTube)
Just look all this up, it's not rocket science, because it's all been done before, and now, at the Mountain Pass proposed Lithium mine in Nevada. There is a very well worn legal path here, which conservation groups follow, because they are very well cashed up. So they consider that if in the end they lose their appeals and the mine does go ahead, instead of it happening next year, if they can delay it through the courts for 4 or 5 years or more, then they consider it money well spent.
C'mon, just put in an effort and find the research, it's all there. Don't be lazy, and rely on others.
I'm sorry if I appear to be a bit gruff at times, please accept my apologies, it's just a bit of frustration.
When you read a research report, or government document, or legal judgement, or scientific report, just consider it like a spider's web, what you are reading is the outside strand. The hyperbole or vagueness or spiel that is usually espoused, is often not that valuable, what you need to look for, in order to get to the real truth, is find the meta-data, because that will lead you further and further into the truth of the investigation. Look for names of people and organisations and departments, and search on those names, and when you have done that, do the same at the second level, and then the third level down, and so on, until you get to the centre of the web. When you reach the centre, or close to it, you will find some intriguing information at times, most of it not disclosed, and you will find some interesting characters associated with it, their histories, and the motives for their behaviours.
Remember - we are dealing with the USA here.
"It's money that matters - in the USA (Randy Newman)".
This is why Rhyolite Ridge will be built - because it's in the USA, and at the end of the day, only one thing really matters in the USA".
Gw
INR Price at posting:
31.5¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Held
(20min delay)