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THE 1872 GENERAL MINING LAW
The 1872 General Mining Law remains the template for the mining of nearly 500 million acres of pubic domain lands. Under the 1872 Law, miners who claim minerals on federal public lands—not public policy makers—decide when, where, and how to mine. The 1872 Law grants an absolute right to mine, but not standards for prudent mine operations, mine site cleanup, reclamation or restoration, or financial responsibility.
The 1872 Law's legacy includes 550,000 abandoned and inactive mines; 10,000 miles of degraded rivers and streams; hundreds of polluted lakes and reservoirs; and, more than 50 Superfund sites. In addition, federal-land mineral mining is unraveling billion-dollar land-management and recovery plans for forests, fish, and wildlife, although miners pay no royalties for minerals removed from federal land. Taxpayers pay the bill for cleaning up pollution and mitigating perils to human health and drinking water.
BACKGROUND
The 1872 General Mining Law - The General Mining Law of 1872 (1872 Law) covers exploration and extraction of "hardrock" minerals. Hardrock minerals are gold, silver, copper, iron, molybdenum, uranium, asbestos, and some other less common natural substances. Coal, oil, natural gas, and geothermal resources, originally included in the 1872 Law, are now covered under other laws. Sand, rock and other aggregate materials are also covered under other laws.
U. S. Forest Service (USFS) and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands are the most commonly mined public lands unless Congress or land-management agencies have specifically withdrawn an area from the filing of new mineral claims. The USFS and BLM believe that the 1872 Law prohibits them from denying a plan of operations regardless of how pristine or fragile the area proposed for mining, or how mining may conflict with other uses.
Claiming Federal Land for Hardrock Minerals - Any person (including domestic and foreign corporations who are defined by law as persons) can claim the right to mine a specific area not already withdrawn from the filing of new mineral claims. Claimants mark an area to be claimed as required by state and federal rules, and file notice of location with the county clerk or recorder and with the BLM.
If a miner can demonstrate that a mineral can be extracted, removed, and marketed profitably, the miner is said to have a "discovery" and can exclusively occupy the site for mining related activities. In practice, agencies do not require proof of discovery prior to approving plans for new or expanded mining operations. Claims are often held for speculative purposes.
Other Federal Laws - Other federal laws are tangential to mining and do not directly address operations, enforcement, and reclamation related to hardrock mining. As a consequence, the BLM and the FS have developed few comprehensive standards. While federal land managers are required to prepare management plans for various uses of public lands, the 1872 Law makes hardrock mining a dominant use not controlled by comprehensive federal agency planning.
State Laws - States make varying commitments to administering federal laws such as the Clean Water Act and make widely differing interpretations of their role under federal law. States can require more vigorous environmental standards than federal agencies, so long as the effect of state regulations is not to prohibit mining on federal lands. Federal agencies assert that their approvals of plans of operations cannot be conditioned on miners securing state permits.
PENDING LEGISLATION
Congressional committees are considering changes to the 1872 Law. The legislation, commonly referred to as the Rahall Bill, includes the following elements:
1) Royalties for all mining operations comparable to those imposed on coal, oil, timber and natural gas producers
2) The bill would close environmentally sensitive areas such as wildernesses and roadless areas to mining, and it would authorize federal officials, for the first time, to reject mining applications in favor of other land uses, including conservation and recreation
3) Impose new environmental restrictions, and would require companies to fully restore mining sites after operations shut down
Updates and status reports can be found at: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h110-2262
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