The mining companies point out the huge benefits the project brings in terms of employment, tax revenue and foreign exchange.
And even if they did bring them home, such a dramatic influx of metals onto the marketplace could drive down commodity prices to the point where mining doesn't make economic sense.
The mining industry is a case in point.
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That is the point of the National Coal Mining Museum in Overton, about 13 miles south-west of Knottingley, on the site of the former Capstone colliery.
The fall in investment by Australian mining firms in the late 1990s illustrates the point.
Advocates of federal regulation point to the case of coal mining, which Congress regulates based on its national importance.
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Several experts in the field outlined several issues that they said point to a decline in the mining industry, from poor ore grades to declines in drilling activity to misinformation on the investment side.
They point to a report from Deloitte that contends that mining helped shield Australia from recession last year, when the economies of most rich countries contracted.
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As to the mining companies doing the right thing: this is part of my point.
He found the money by dropping the government's plan to cut company tax by a percentage point, a promise linked to a new tax on mining profits.
Analysts and fund managers point to a number of reasons for the poor performance of gold-mining stocks.
That coal mining has been memorialised in a folk museum is itself a sign of creeping irrelevance, a point the museum acknowledges, perhaps accidentally.
They may also point out that mergers are no substitute for finding new reserves an activity the mining giants have neglected in recent years.
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