An unexpected decline in the price of an essential battery material, along with those of other commodities, is good news for buyers. But experts disagree on how long low prices will last.
The E.P.A. has proposed to ban the disposal of mining waste in the Bristol Bay watershed, a decision that very likely means the end of the Pebble Mine project.
The leases, reinstated during the Trump years, would have allowed a Chilean mining conglomerate to dig for copper and nickel near the Boundary Waters wilderness in Minnesota.