I explained why I think this is argued in bad faith: trying to frame mining in a law framework for the single purpose of killing it vs something like: "ok, this is bad, let's try to fix it. here's how we can fix it"
If the author believes it to be illegal, why should they care about "fixing it"?
Murderer: <kills a person with a hammer>
You: Let's introduce a new law to make killing people with hammers illegal.
Author: We don't need to introduce a new law, murder is already a crime.
You: That's a bad faith argument, because it means we can't kill people with any kind of implement, not just hammers!
There are two ways you can argue this:
1) Either you believe that the crime should not be illegal.
2) Or you disagree that the act falls under the definition of this crime.
In neither case is the author acting in bad faith, they're just disagreeing with you. It sounds like you would argue (2) but in that case you should provide some reasoning for that.
Murderer: <kills a person with a hammer>
You: Let's introduce a new law to make killing people with hammers illegal.
Author: We don't need to introduce a new law, murder is already a crime.
You: That's a bad faith argument, because it means we can't kill people with any kind of implement, not just hammers!
There are two ways you can argue this:
1) Either you believe that the crime should not be illegal.
2) Or you disagree that the act falls under the definition of this crime.
In neither case is the author acting in bad faith, they're just disagreeing with you. It sounds like you would argue (2) but in that case you should provide some reasoning for that.