Congress approves glacier law in win for Milei and copper miners

Argentina’s Congress approved legislation that eases protections for glacial formations in a long-awaited move by top mining companies with large projects pending while environmentalists warned against it.

Lawmakers approved the legal changes early Thursday in a 137-111 vote after senators gave their green light in late February.

The approval is another victory for President Javier Milei’s pro-business legislative agenda after he passed a labour reform earlier this year. However, the time line for a congressional vote is less clear for other reforms, such as a trade agreement between the US and Argentina or a tax overhaul.

On the glacier law, projects like BHP Group’s Vicuña joint venture and Glencore Plc’s El Pachón are at stake, where combined capital expenditure is estimated around US$28 billion. These projects and others have already applied to Milei’s so-called RIGI programme that provides tax breaks and legal guarantees that vastly improve the economics of mining projects in Argentina.

The key reform, which miners had lobbied for, gives provincial governors control over deciding whether a glacier or permafrost formation is a key source of water downstream. If the provinces decide they aren’t, miners can exploit them.

Previously, thousands of glacial formations received blanket protections from a federal inventory that’s now rendered toothless after the vote in Congress.

Miners argued that some formations on their properties aren’t key water sources for population centres and farmers, but are federally-listed anyway, making them a legal liability.

Opponents say provinces where most of Argentina’s copper lies are largely pro-mining, so they’ll simply give the all-clear to damage any glacier that might get in the way of companies.

“This law will end up in practice no longer as a protection but as a tool at the service of mega miners,” opposition Santa Fe Province congresswoman Caren Tepp said. “They will go to the provinces, tell them where they want to mine, then finance whatever scientific studies provincial officials need to justify a decision to clear the way.”

On the other end, Flavia Royón, a Peronist senator for the pro-mining province of Salta, gave full backing to the idea that governors are best positioned to say which glaciers contribute to water supplies.

“We have to move from the logic of glacial form – prohibiting for the sake of prohibiting – to the logic of glacial function: protecting what truly needs to be protected,” Royon said.

Milei, who sees copper as a big opportunity for investment and jobs, announced the changes in a speech late last year, saying that “once and for all” they would allow Argentines to “start taking advantage of our natural wealth.”

“The pivoting to Argentina is massive,” said Christopher Ecclestone, a London-based mining investor and consultant who tracks Argentina closely. “Top-tier copper resources are running out; it’s the second tier that matters now and Argentina has cornered that market.”