U.S. Official Calls Environmentalists ‘a Bunch of Nuts’

The head of the U.S. Bureau of Mines has told miners, loggers and others who advocate development of federal land that environmentalists are “a bunch of nuts” and that he does not believe in endangered species.

T. S. Ary, who has headed the agency for the last three years, later qualified his comments on endangered species.

In a speech Thursday, Ary expressed frustration with legal hurdles that he said environmental groups have tried to erect to make it tougher to mine.

“I don’t believe in endangered species. I think the only ones are sitting here in this room,” he told a conference of miners, loggers, ranchers, farmers and other advocates of developing federal land.

After noting that the title of the meeting was the National Wilderness Conference, Ary said he mistakenly had believed that he would be addressing environmental groups.

“I thought I was going to come out and be a sacrificial lamb for a bunch of nuts,” he said.

The conference was sponsored by groups such as the Mountain States Legal Foundation, the American Farm Bureau Federation, the American Motorcyclist Assn., the American Petroleum Institute and the American Mining Congress.

Ary criticized environmental groups for trying to rewrite federal mining laws in order to make it more expensive for mining companies to operate.

“There is this ‘Mine-Free by ’93 Syndrome,’ ” Ary said. “They are very creative, and they have the money. Watch your backside . . . . If they find a way to roll us and repeal that mining law, you people are duck soup.”

When asked to elaborate on his comments about the Endangered Species Act, Ary said: “As soon as I said it, I knew I should have explained it . . . . There are endangered species, just like there are wilderness areas. But we shouldn’t make them up.”