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Tuesday, November 15, 2005
Public Lands: Golden giveaway
Outraged by a controversial deal in which a Canadian mining giant paid a mere $9,000 for clear title to harvest an estimated $10 billion in gold from U.S.-owned lands, Congress in 1994 slapped a moratorium on such giveaways perpetrated under the federal Mining Law of 1872.
Since then, the law has languished, in need of serious reform relevant to the 21st century, not the 19th. But House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo, R-Calif., under the guise of reforming the law and under cover of the omnibus budget bill, proposes an even worse public lands giveaway.
Under the Pombo proposal, private parties could again "patent" mining claims on public lands under the 1872 law and again extract hard rock mineral deposits without paying federal royalties. But they would no longer have to prove that valuable mineral deposits exist on the land to buy it and the land could be resold to developers.
"It could literally lead to the privatization of millions of acres of public land, including national park and national forest lands," said The Wilderness Society's Dave Alberswerth.
Republicans say the changes would generate about $326 million in revenue over 10 years. But applying an 8 percent royalty on minerals extracted from public lands, which coal mining companies already pay, would raise more money in half the time.
As Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., put it, "They want to give away the taxpayers' gold."
That would be a crime.
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