Section 105 - Penalties. Penalties are totally out of proportion to listed violations. A more proper penalty is forfeiture of rights. Civil penalties have no place in this legislation. Perjury is already a felony. Beation 106 - Use of Non-Hining Clain Lands. Inadequate for intended purpose. Secretary has total discretion. Guidelines must be "reasonable" and Secretary "shall" prescribe guidelines rather than "may." Page 18, line 17, should clarify that lands available for milling and processing are lands "not claimed by the holder." Delete "as otherwise provided for in this Act" since no other provision is made. Section 108 - Limitation on Patent Issuance. (a) Claim holder should have right to perfect existing claim, receive patent and mine it under present system if there is discovery. Effective date should be date of enactment, not of introduction. Government interest should be adequately protected by allowing claim contests. Language in 1955 Act eliminating rights to vegetation would be a good model. (b) Same comment as for Section 108 (a). Section 110 – Mineral Materials. The term "mineral material" needs to be defined. Provides no protection for claim holders with valid existing rights. "Uncommon" varieties should not be eliminated. Title II Section 201 - Surface Management Requirements. (a) Meaning of "minimize adverse environmental (b) (1) Too many plans of operation required. overwhelmed. Agencies will be (b) (2) (A) and (B) Change word "may" to "shall." Too much Sec (b) (3) Secretary must be given time certain in which to approve plans of operations. Current regulations mandate 30 days. Operation should be permitted by law if agency fails to act. Provision should be made for partial release of "financial guarantees." (b)(4) and (5) Makes all other public land uses superior to mining. Mining will be banned on all lands that have not been subject to land use planning. Prohibition of mining is unsatisfactory. (b) (6) It is unreasonable to deny the right to mine anywhere because of a single violation. (c) Seeks restoration; not reclamation. Sets extremely high standards for reclamation with an enormous amount of Secretarial discretion. Could require backfilling of pits; a virtually impossible requirement. Reclamation requirements are similar to those required in coal mining under the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act and are inappropriate for hardrock mining. Hardrock mining requires management by "exception" On page 25, line 17, insert "their" after the word "by" to clarify intent. (c) (2) Listing of requirements unnecessary. Operator should be allowed to proceed on basis of an approved plan of operations. (c) (2) (H) Must be deleted. More stringent than Superfund requirements. Beation 202 - Inspection and Enforcement. (a) Would result in more than 500,000 inspections per year Is this (b), (c), and (d) Objectionable, but innocuous when viewed in perspective of citizen suit provision. (e) Citizen suits are completely objectionable and unnecessary. Will add unnecessary expense to mining operations. Seation 203 - __Land Use Plans. These provisions strike at the very heart of selfinitiation and cannot be supported. It is completely and unalterably unacceptable. (a) Meaning is not clear. (b) Amended plans or completed plans should come under 201(b) (4) Allows operations to continue while 201(b) (5) (c) H.R.3866 contained protection where plans are incomplete. This language should be reinserted. Section 204 – Lands Not Open to Location. The amount of land removed from mining claim location by this provision is staggering. Thrust is to prohibit mining; not encourage. Closing lands which "may hereafter be withdrawn" amounts to 100% of public land. Section 205 – Savings Clause. Non-preemption of State environmental laws will allow State and local governments to zone land uses on public lands. States should not have authority regulate mining claims. Pervasive reclamation requirements of bill leave no room for state discretion and such laws should be preempted. Should also exempt mines from Resource Conservation and Recovery Act requirements to avoid duplication and inconsistency. Title IV Section 401 - Jurisdiction: Policy Functions. Definition of Secretary should be transferred to Section 101. Opens the door to establishment of conflicting mining law policy; one by the Secretary of Agriculture, one by the Secretary of Interior. Section 403 - Regulations. It is impossible for Secretary to promulgate all required regulations within 180 days. The bill should provide for continuing activity when the Secretary fails to act in a timely way. section 404. Transitional Rules. This section is subject to many uncertainties and There is no provision for transition of valid existing extralateral rights. (c) Discovery is the only appropriate vehicle for a claim against the United States. 56-185 - 92 - 6 Mr. RAHALL. Mr. Neff. Mr. NEFF. Mr. Chairman and Members of the committee, I am here on behalf of the Northwest Mining Association that has submitted a written statement and which I believe will be a part of the record. Our primary concern with the entire legislation and its history is that it is essentially overriding 100 years of history of what the country was doing with its Western lands. For the benefit of industrial society, of course, we had national policy that has encouraged the private sector, not the Government, to develop mineral resources. The current bill appears to be running right in the face of that particular policy and essentially is going to be prohibitive on the private sector attempting to further develop resource. It may well be that roughly, I will use the term a third of the country, that is currently in public ownership should be sterilized and we should not be attempting to develop mineral. But if we are, it has to be upon terms that the industry and the people involved in exploration can live with. I submit that the current bill is not such a proposal. That the current bill, we loosely sometimes refer to it up in Spokane as the thousand points of light for lawyers. There at least a thousand lawsuits in this bill the way it is drafted. And the question is basically, in the end, is anybody going to be induced into spending the time, money, and energy, and years of effort that it takes to bring a mineral deposit to economic viability and then be told that they absolutely cannot mine it. I don't think that risk money is available for that type of venture. I think we are at the point where we have already discouraged most of our domestic sources of capital from engaging in the activity we are in now, which delays ultimate development through a protracted series of environmental reviews and the long series that goes on with the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management regulations. But, to say then absolutely that, at some point in time, for whatever reason they would be denied the right to mine without compensation, I think makes it totally uninviting to anyone who is attempting to conduct exploration. I think we are basically in that point. The question there is a lot of anticonservation provisions in the current proposals that are here, both here and in the Senate bills, particularly in the area of royalties which I consider anticonservation. But the bottom line is the policy has to be determined at the outset. Is it going to continue to be the policy of the Federal Government to invite the private sector to explore and develop minerals in the public lands? If it is not, I think the time has come to make that clear. As I point out in the written statement, I think the current proposal already precipitates a problem of taking of what claims are there and what values are there. I don't know that the number is significant in Washington. Out in the West it certainly is. We are talking about millions of dollars of values that would be simply taken away. I would suggest maybe this is the thousand points of light for lawyers and maybe I should look forward to my declining years of this constant litigation. But that is not the function of the North |