(a) The Legislature finds and declares that:

(i) Within the state, mining constitutes a significant aspect of the state’s economy.

(ii) The Interstate Mining Compact was established in 1966 to provide a forum for states having significant mining to exchange ideas on mining technology, conservation, and reclamation practices and to generate consensus policies for use as desired by member states and for input at the congressional and federal regulatory level of government.

(iii) Membership in the Compact by the state will provide the Governor, as the representative of the state on the Interstate Mining Compact Commission, direct input on significant mining issues and policies and access to ideas and sources of information, not otherwise available, which may enable the state to initiate progressive or desired policies and mining control techniques that will be to the benefit of the citizens of Mississippi and the mining industry in the state.

(b) The purposes of the Interstate Mining Compact are recognized to be to:

(i) Advance the protection and restoration of land, water, and other resources affected by mining.

(ii) Assist in the reduction, elimination, or counteracting of pollution or deterioration of land, water, and air attributable to mining.

(iii) Encourage, with due recognition of relevant regional, physical, and other differences, programs in each of the party states which will achieve comparable results in protecting, conserving, and improving the usefulness of natural resources, to the end that the most desirable conduct of mining and related operations may be universally facilitated.

(iv) Assist the party states in their efforts to facilitate the use of land and other resources affected by mining, so that such use may be consistent with sound land use, public health, and public safety, and to this end to study and recommend, wherever desirable, techniques for the improvement, restoration, or protection of such land and other resources.

(v) Assist in achieving and maintaining an efficient and productive mining industry and in increasing economic and other benefits attributable to mining.