As the Democrat-controlled Senate lines up the party-line votes to pass the Inflation Reduction Act, featuring $369 billion in new federal spending for wind, solar, and electric vehicles (EVs), environmentalists are uncertain whether to cheer or weep. 
If passed, the bill would be a victory for advocates of “renewable” energy and the elimination of fossil fuels. However, as is always the case with energy economics, the investment in renewables would come with an environmental cost: an enormous expansion of mining projects to extract the raw materials for solar panels, wind turbines, and electric batteries out of the earth. 
The Biden administration is itself torn on the issue, attempting on the one hand to reduce America’s dependence on China and other foreign countries for the essential raw materials of his Green New Deal, while on the other hand blocking the permits and approvals that allow American mining companies to dig. …