Rep. Buck McKeon

Exactly 11 years – to the day – after he first introduced legislation seeking to block a massive gravel mine in Soledad Canyon, Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon introduced what will be his last bill aimed at achieving the same end.

And this version is different.

McKeon, who retires next month after 22 years in Congress, introduced H.R. 5742 on Wednesday. It calls on federal officials to cancel Mexican cement manufacturer Cemex’s mining contracts in Soledad Canyon in exchange for the proceeds from the sale of land in Victorville.

Both Cemex and the city of Santa Clarita – which has been fighting the mining proposal since it first learned of it in the mid-1990s – support the move.

The text of McKeon’s bill has not yet been published, but it is expected to mirror a new bill introduced earlier in the week by Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. For now, the stated purpose of H.R. 5742 is “to provide to the Secretary of the Interior a mechanism to cancel contracts for the sale of materials CA-20139 and CA-22901, and for other purposes.”

Unlike past bills, which stalled on grounds they constituted an earmark that would cost the federal government money, Boxer’s new bill garnered a “zero” score from the Congressional Budget Office, meaning the government wouldn’t lose money on it.

McKeon’s H.R. 5742 was referred Wednesday to the House Committee on Natural Resources.

Cemex holds two back-to-back mining contracts for Soledad Canyon, each 10 years in length, enabling it to extract up to 78 million tons of gravel to produce 56 million tons of usable aggregate over 20 years.

The new legislation would cancel the contracts and prohibit future mining in the area.

Earlier this year in a hearing on a previous version of the bill, federal officials testified that Soledad Canyon has the potential to produce 356 million tons of sand and gravel, and said the cancellation of Cemex’s contracts would set a bad precedent. Since then, however, much of the land that would have yielded the 356 million tons was included in the new San Gabriel Mountains National Monument, where mining is prohibited.

From a previous story:

Boxer reintroduced the Soledad Canyon Settlement Act that would resolve the 15-year-long mining dispute between the city of Santa Clarita and Cemex USA, officials said Tuesday.

The legislation would require the Bureau of Land Management to cancel current mining contracts inSoledad Canyon and prohibit future mining at the site.

In a letter to Senate Interior Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Jack Reed (D-RI) and Ranking Member Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Boxer said, “Today, I am reintroducing The Soledad Canyon Settlement Act with changes that will result in a zero score from the Congressional Budget Office. The expected cost was a crucial impediment against moving forward with this legislation.”

The legislation was updated to make clear that it will have no cost to the federal government or taxpayers.

“By ensuring that this bill will have no cost to the government or taxpayers, I believe we have increased our chances of passing it,”  Boxer said. “This legislation has the support of the city of Santa Clarita andCemez USA, and I am hopeful that we can work with both Republicans and Democrats in Congress to resolve this decades-long dispute and protect the people of the Santa Clarita Valley from pollution and traffic congestion.”

Senator Boxer is also sending a letter to Reed and Murkowski, requesting that the provisions of her bill be included in the Interior Appropriations bill if it is passed in this Congress. In addition, she sent a letter to Environment and Natural Resources Chairman Mary Landrieu and Murkowski asking for their support for the legislation as well.

In 2007, the city of Santa Clarita and Cemex USA announced that they would seek a compromise agreement that would avoid mining in Soledad Canyon while compensating Cemex USA for the value of the mining contracts.

“I’m extremely pleased to hear about the bill being reintroduced,” said Councilman Bob Kellar. “There have been some minor changes made to the bill. I’m extremely excited about this news. It’s not out of the question to get it through by the end of the year, if not the bill will move forward into the next session.”

Boxer’s bill, which has the strong support of Santa Clarita officials, would implement a balanced solution. The bill directs the BLM to cancel Cemex USA’s sand and gravel mining leases at Soledad Canyon and withdraw this site from future mining. The bill calls for the BLM to sell lands near Victorville, California that have already been identified for disposal and use the proceeds to compensate Cemex USA for the canceled contracts.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has reviewed the revised language in the bill and concluded that it has a zero score. The measure would ensure that no cost would be incurred by the taxpayers to complete the agreement to cancel Cemex USA’s mining leases – either before or after the sale of the BLM lands.

Santa Clarita officials recently sent a letter to the Administration expressing their interest in donating the mine property to the federal government to serve as a gateway point for the recently designated San Gabriel Mountains National Monument, as the mine sits directly on the new monument’s northwestern boundary.  However, the mining dispute would first need to be resolved before the city could donate the property.