Bill Would Sell Land Promised
to D.C. By Juliet Eilperin and Debbi Wilgoren, Washington Post Staff Writers
Tucked inside a huge budget
bill headed for an upcoming House vote is a provision that could spur the federal government to sell off millions of
acres of public land to mining interests, marking a major shift in the nation’s mining policy. …
Congress has barred
the government from selling land outright to mining companies since 1994, on the grounds that they should lease public land the same way
oil and gas firms do to extract the minerals below. But House Resources Committee Chairman Richard W. Pombo (R-Calif.)
said the measure would cut the deficit and promote private ownership. “In some states primarily owned by the federal government,
it’s important that more of that land become private property,” Pombo said. “These environmental groups want
the federal government to own everything.” [brayed the jackass – mjh]
Pombo’s proposal is stuck in 1872 by John Leshy
Not
satisfied with … liberalization of the discredited 1872 [mining] law, Pombo would also let private interests buy federal lands for
purposes that have nothing to do with mining, such as building ski resorts, gaming casinos and strip malls on areas owned by the American
public.
A unanimous Supreme Court ruled in 1979 that “the federal mining law surely was not intended to be a general real estate
law.” Pombo’s bill would change all that ….
[I]nvaluable sites, like wilderness study areas and national forest
roadless areas, are plainly left vulnerable to eventual privatization under this provision. Hikers, hunters and livestock
grazers could find locked gates blocking their passage through previously public lands — with the U.S. government nearly powerless to do
anything about it.
Pombo is trying to sneak his bill through Congress, hiding it in a budget
debate that has been dominated by higher profile controversies. He pushed the bill through committee under the
pretense of raising federal revenue, without mentioning that the public, the owner of these lands, will be the big loser.
Hard-rock mining is the only extractive industry that pays no royalties on the resources it removes from public lands.
Establishing a modest 8 percent royalty, which is at the lower end of what coal, oil and gas companies already pay for federal
resources, would yield twice as much revenue as Pombo expects from his land grab.
Politics – Pombo hopes to help mining – sacbee.com
Environmental Working Group … this week issued a new online report, available at www.ewg.org,
that purports to detail the public land opportunities opened by Pombo’s bill. The report concludes that about 17,000 acres in El Dorado
County, 13,000 acres in Mariposa County and 11,000 acres in Tuolumne County – all currently claimed for mining – could be sold in the
short term.
“Pombo does not like federal lands, so this is consistent with his general philosophy,” said John Leshy, the Interior
Department’s former top lawyer.
Now a professor at the University of California’s Hastings College of Law, Leshy likened the
proposal to “a real estate deal that has nothing to do with mining.” He further termed it “a huge change in national policy,” moving the
government toward disposal and away from retention of public lands.
The idea under debate revisits a public lands controversy that
flared during the early 1990s but then went largely underground until recently. Under an 1872 mining law, companies and individuals can
“patent” – or purchase – public land for $2.50 or $5 an acre.
Stung by deals in which the federal government sold off
valuable land for a song, officials imposed a moratorium on mining patents in 1994. …
[His lunacy (mjh)] … helped
keep a spotlight on the 44-year-old Pombo, who in recent months has drawn both high praise [?!] and sharp criticism for his broader
environmental agenda.
—–
Pombo also placed the Bush Administration’s bid to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil
drilling within the budget bill.