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.The GAO summarized the legislative history of the General Min-ing Law of 1872 and noted changes in the statute.First, Congress hadremoved the fuel minerals such as coal, gas, and oil from coverage andcreated alternative systems.Second, Congress had removed the common-variety minerals such as sand and gravel from coverage.Finally, Congressand the president had withdrawn from mineral exploitation 727 millionacres of public land for wilderness areas and national parks.Most tell-ing, however, was the fact that various proposals have been made toamend the act s hardrock minerals patent and annual work provisions,but none of them have been enacted. 2 The patent and work require-ments had done nothing to bring about mineral claim development.The Mining Law of 1872 also appeared out of step with recent fed-eral legislation.The GAO reported thatthe patent provisions of the Mining Law of 1872 clearly runcounter to other national natural resource policies and legis-lation.The Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976(FLPMA) provides that, in general, public lands should remainunder federal ownership and be managed for the benefit of allusers (multiple use) as well as for future generations (sustainedyield).However, mining claim holders can gain title to federallands by patenting their claims, thereby precluding future pub-lic use of these lands.3Patented claims impeded the effective management of abutting fed-eral lands and barred federal control of incompatible development ofthose patented lands.What had happened was simple: patented claimswere private property, and if the government wanted it, the governmentwould have to take it by eminent domain.The Fifth Amendment to theU.S.Constitution required payment for the private property.Mineralpatentees had government to hold up if it wanted to acquire their prop-erty for a public purpose.One kind of development that galled environmentalists and 128 / Chapter 13reformers was the patented claim converted into profitable nonmineralenterprise, with the federal government not receiving a single coppercent.The GAO referenced ski resorts in Keystone and Breckenridge,Colorado.4The GAO reminded Congress that this was not its first report.In1974 the GAO had found that the 1872 Mining Law did not provide a sys-tem for determining the number and location of claims, ensure mineraldevelopment, give the federal government a fair market return on theminerals extracted from the public domain, or protect the federal landsfrom degradation.FLPMA had addressed some of these concerns in1976.Claim and annual work affidavits were now filed with the Bureauof Land Management, and that agency now knew where the claims werelocated.Less effectively addressed, GAO claimed, were fair market valuereturns and environmental protection.In 1979 the GAO returned to theissue and again called for fair market value returns and the abolition ofthe patenting system.5The GAO also revisited its findings regarding the annual workrequirement and recommended that it be replaced with a payment sys-tem directly to the federal government.In 1974 the GAO found that 237 of the 240 claims we reviewed showed no evidence that mineralextraction had ever taken place, and on 146 of the claims, no evidence ofdevelopment work existed. 6 Verification of work by the Forest Serviceor the BLM was an inefficient use of their resources. While the min-ing community generally recognizes that many claim holders certifythat they have met the annual requirement without ever performingthe work, it would be difficult to differentiate between work certifiedbut not done and work done that cannot be verified, the GAO con-cluded.7 Further, where bulldozers did work, in particular, the distur-bance of land was significant.The disturbance did nothing to developthe claim in most cases.8 GAO and the Congressional Budget Office in a1988 report favored an annual fee paid in to the federal Treasury.9 GAOwarned that such a provision might start a stampede to patent claims toavoid paying the fee.It did not take long for the press to pick up the story.On May 22,1989, the Los Angeles Times ran a series entitled Public Land, Private A Frontal Attack on the Mining Law of 1872 / 129Profit: Inside the Bureau of Land Management. The second in theseries focused on the Mining Law of 1872 and the GAO report.TheTimes opened Mine Law Is Pure Gold to Speculators with a story ofa Tonopah, Nevada, miner who used the Mining Law of 1872 to stake aclaim where the federal government wanted to develop a nuclear wastedump.His $500 investment yielded $249,500 from a federal buyout ofhis claim.Further, growing concern about the appropriateness of thepick-and-shovel General Mining Law in an era of satellite-image pros-pecting is encouraging a congressional debate over how best to reformor rewrite one of the nation s most basic economic and environmentalregulations. 10 As the Tonopah miner made clear: If you re legal in filinga claim and do everything by the [book], no body can stop you.Thelaw protects the little man. Those little guys were staking thousands ofclaims outside resort communities, particularly Las Vegas and Laughlin,Nevada.They were doing what miners of the nineteenth century weredoing, locating claims adjacent to paying mines hoping to leverage mineowners into paying them off to expand their operations.Now twentieth-century Alkali Ikes were staking anything to await community develop-ment in their direction.Neither locators of the nineteenth or twentiethcenturies intended to develop a mine.The Times also cited the GAOexample of a $42,500 patented claim turned into a $34 million sale to oilcompanies as an example of the abuse of the statute.Conflicts with otherfederal policies and statutes also graced the story.Environmental deg-radation was another unintended consequence of the General MiningLaw.Regardless, Keith Knoblock of the American Mining Congress(AMC) was quoted in opposition to any change in the law. Our fear is ifit is opened up, we ll end up with a mineral-leasing system for hardrockmining, he said.The greatest impact of such change, Knoblock pre-dicted, would be on small miners.The San Francisco Chronicle found one of those small miners.DanSagaser was a seventy-eight-year-old miner living in a cabin he built inthe Siskiyou National Forest on his mining claim.Now he was beingevicted under the 1976 Federal Land Policy Management Act s require-ment that small-scale ( mom-and-pop ) miners be put out of thenational forests.Speaking of the Mining Law of 1872, Sagaser said that 130 / Chapter 13 to us, it was like the Constitution.We believed in it.We invested ourlives in it [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.The GAO summarized the legislative history of the General Min-ing Law of 1872 and noted changes in the statute.First, Congress hadremoved the fuel minerals such as coal, gas, and oil from coverage andcreated alternative systems.Second, Congress had removed the common-variety minerals such as sand and gravel from coverage.Finally, Congressand the president had withdrawn from mineral exploitation 727 millionacres of public land for wilderness areas and national parks.Most tell-ing, however, was the fact that various proposals have been made toamend the act s hardrock minerals patent and annual work provisions,but none of them have been enacted. 2 The patent and work require-ments had done nothing to bring about mineral claim development.The Mining Law of 1872 also appeared out of step with recent fed-eral legislation.The GAO reported thatthe patent provisions of the Mining Law of 1872 clearly runcounter to other national natural resource policies and legis-lation.The Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976(FLPMA) provides that, in general, public lands should remainunder federal ownership and be managed for the benefit of allusers (multiple use) as well as for future generations (sustainedyield).However, mining claim holders can gain title to federallands by patenting their claims, thereby precluding future pub-lic use of these lands.3Patented claims impeded the effective management of abutting fed-eral lands and barred federal control of incompatible development ofthose patented lands.What had happened was simple: patented claimswere private property, and if the government wanted it, the governmentwould have to take it by eminent domain.The Fifth Amendment to theU.S.Constitution required payment for the private property.Mineralpatentees had government to hold up if it wanted to acquire their prop-erty for a public purpose.One kind of development that galled environmentalists and 128 / Chapter 13reformers was the patented claim converted into profitable nonmineralenterprise, with the federal government not receiving a single coppercent.The GAO referenced ski resorts in Keystone and Breckenridge,Colorado.4The GAO reminded Congress that this was not its first report.In1974 the GAO had found that the 1872 Mining Law did not provide a sys-tem for determining the number and location of claims, ensure mineraldevelopment, give the federal government a fair market return on theminerals extracted from the public domain, or protect the federal landsfrom degradation.FLPMA had addressed some of these concerns in1976.Claim and annual work affidavits were now filed with the Bureauof Land Management, and that agency now knew where the claims werelocated.Less effectively addressed, GAO claimed, were fair market valuereturns and environmental protection.In 1979 the GAO returned to theissue and again called for fair market value returns and the abolition ofthe patenting system.5The GAO also revisited its findings regarding the annual workrequirement and recommended that it be replaced with a payment sys-tem directly to the federal government.In 1974 the GAO found that 237 of the 240 claims we reviewed showed no evidence that mineralextraction had ever taken place, and on 146 of the claims, no evidence ofdevelopment work existed. 6 Verification of work by the Forest Serviceor the BLM was an inefficient use of their resources. While the min-ing community generally recognizes that many claim holders certifythat they have met the annual requirement without ever performingthe work, it would be difficult to differentiate between work certifiedbut not done and work done that cannot be verified, the GAO con-cluded.7 Further, where bulldozers did work, in particular, the distur-bance of land was significant.The disturbance did nothing to developthe claim in most cases.8 GAO and the Congressional Budget Office in a1988 report favored an annual fee paid in to the federal Treasury.9 GAOwarned that such a provision might start a stampede to patent claims toavoid paying the fee.It did not take long for the press to pick up the story.On May 22,1989, the Los Angeles Times ran a series entitled Public Land, Private A Frontal Attack on the Mining Law of 1872 / 129Profit: Inside the Bureau of Land Management. The second in theseries focused on the Mining Law of 1872 and the GAO report.TheTimes opened Mine Law Is Pure Gold to Speculators with a story ofa Tonopah, Nevada, miner who used the Mining Law of 1872 to stake aclaim where the federal government wanted to develop a nuclear wastedump.His $500 investment yielded $249,500 from a federal buyout ofhis claim.Further, growing concern about the appropriateness of thepick-and-shovel General Mining Law in an era of satellite-image pros-pecting is encouraging a congressional debate over how best to reformor rewrite one of the nation s most basic economic and environmentalregulations. 10 As the Tonopah miner made clear: If you re legal in filinga claim and do everything by the [book], no body can stop you.Thelaw protects the little man. Those little guys were staking thousands ofclaims outside resort communities, particularly Las Vegas and Laughlin,Nevada.They were doing what miners of the nineteenth century weredoing, locating claims adjacent to paying mines hoping to leverage mineowners into paying them off to expand their operations.Now twentieth-century Alkali Ikes were staking anything to await community develop-ment in their direction.Neither locators of the nineteenth or twentiethcenturies intended to develop a mine.The Times also cited the GAOexample of a $42,500 patented claim turned into a $34 million sale to oilcompanies as an example of the abuse of the statute.Conflicts with otherfederal policies and statutes also graced the story.Environmental deg-radation was another unintended consequence of the General MiningLaw.Regardless, Keith Knoblock of the American Mining Congress(AMC) was quoted in opposition to any change in the law. Our fear is ifit is opened up, we ll end up with a mineral-leasing system for hardrockmining, he said.The greatest impact of such change, Knoblock pre-dicted, would be on small miners.The San Francisco Chronicle found one of those small miners.DanSagaser was a seventy-eight-year-old miner living in a cabin he built inthe Siskiyou National Forest on his mining claim.Now he was beingevicted under the 1976 Federal Land Policy Management Act s require-ment that small-scale ( mom-and-pop ) miners be put out of thenational forests.Speaking of the Mining Law of 1872, Sagaser said that 130 / Chapter 13 to us, it was like the Constitution.We believed in it.We invested ourlives in it [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]