“These are good mining jobs,” Representative Pete Stauber (R-MN) said on the House floor this afternoon. He’s the congressman who introduced the Boundary Waters pollution bill, which was passed by the full House today and is now headed to the Senate.

But are they good mining jobs, though?

Will a sulfide-ore copper mine—one the most pollution-prone forms of mining in the world—actually improve local employment and the local economy?

Would this be a net benefit in the long run?

According to a Harvard study from 2018 about the Twin Metals copper mine near the Boundary Waters, it would not.

“If mining is commenced at [Twin Metals], there would likely be an initial but temporary net growth in employment and income associated with the mining activity,” the study’s authors, Dr. James H. Stock and Jacob T. Brandt, wrote.

However, they said, “[o]ver time, the economic benefits of mining would be outweighed by the negative impact of mining on the recreational industry and on in-migration. This leads to a boom-bust cycle in all the scenarios we examine, in which the region is in the end left worse off economically than it would be” without the mine.

“Our findings are consistent with the academic literature on boom-bust cycles in extractive resource use and the literature on the value of outdoor recreational amenities to regional economies,” they concluded.

Once again—as evidenced by literal scientific analysis—the “jobs” argument that’s almost always used by (Republican) politicians in these legislative proposals is invalid.

When considered in the long run, that argument is just not true.

In fact, as this specific and extremely relevant study shows, there would be more jobs in the Boundary Waters region without the mine (mainly recreation-related jobs) than there would be with it.

Image courtesy: Save The Boundary Waters