At Better in Our Back Yard, our mission is to strengthen the nation’s economy by advocating for responsible industrial development. We are small businesses, engineers, union workers and local officials banded together.

The Jan. 21 story about mining opportunities, Rep. Pete Stauber and what will come next to make these projects a reality provides us all with an awesome opportunity to discuss how we can all work together to responsibly permit and extract Minnesota’s epic deposits of critically important strategic metals in the years ahead.

Our state and federal regulators should always be working towards a responsible way to get to “yes” for critical projects that can show, through the regulatory process, that they can meet or exceed our important environmental and clean water standards. This isn’t and should never be a partisan issue.

Projects in Minnesota and across the country that have become political footballs and interesting topics for political science should really be examined and judged by real science, and their specific merits.

What is happening right now, in Washington, D.C. — and to a certain extent here in Minnesota — is reestablishing a regulatory framework where we can use science to evaluate projects.

But there is still a lot of work to be done. It is worth noting, and even highlighting, that no organizations or companies that are cited throughout news accounts are seeking to lower any environmental standards.

Here in Minnesota, a coalition of business, labor, agriculture and local governments is working together on a bi-partisan effort for regulatory reform in response to a study by the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce. We need to have more transparency, efficiency and timeliness in the review of projects. Whether an organization is seeking permits in agriculture, energy development, waste management or mining, the examination of those projects deserves an honest evaluation without having the rules changed in the middle of the process. The same thing applies at a federal level.

Two years ago, Minnesota passed a law seeking to move the state to 100% clean energy by 2040. During this time, according to the World Bank, the increased demand for copper will be 156%, for nickel 210%, cobalt 450% and platinum 200%. Any part of the supply to that demand that is coming from slave labor, countries that are our adversaries or those that have little or no environmental protections is unacceptable.

We have the opportunity to responsibly permit and extract these critical minerals, right here in our back yard with skilled Minnesota labor. I think that is why we can all join Congressman Stauber and others in our excitement about the work ahead.

Ryan Sistad, of Duluth, is the executive director of Better in Our Backyard, a Duluth-based nonprofit.

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