The Mining Law of 1872

    Perhaps the main reason sportsmen are finally engaged is a dead-on-arrival bill offered in 2005 by Mining Law acolyte, ardent privatizer and then-Congressman Richard Pombo (R-CA) that would have lifted the moratorium on patenting by empowering the secretary of interior to sell off public land and resources, including national parks, wildlife refuges and wilderness areas — not just for mining but for anything, even condos. This got hunters and anglers focused on the Mining Law more effectively than Sportsmen United for Sensible Mining could ever have hoped to. "We owe Pombo a debt of gratitude," remarks TU's Chris Wood.

    Rep. Nick Rahall (D-WV), then ranking member and now chair of the House Resources Committee, called Pombo's scheme "a raid on America's public lands and our natural resources heritage of almost unparalleled proportions." Rahall, who for years has been frustrated in his valiant efforts to reform the Mining Law, at last has a great shot with his Mining Reform Bill (H.R. 2262), which he introduced this past May with Energy and Mineral Resources Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Jim Costa (D-CA) and which was approved by the House on November 1.The legislation (vehemently opposed by the Bush administration) would do away with the notion that hardrock mining on public land is a property right, and instead would regulate it like grazing, logging or any other multiple-use activity.

    H.R. 2262 would require royalties of 4 percent of net revenues on existing mines and 8 percent on new mines. A third of the revenue would go to assist impacted communities, two-thirds to underwrite abandoned-mine cleanup. The bill would outlaw patents submitted after the 1994 moratorium and bar mining in "areas of critical environmental concern," such as the 58.5 million acres in the national forest system defined by the Clinton administration as "roadless," watersheds of wild and scenic rivers, and wilderness study areas. And a mine could not get a permit unless the reclamation plan demonstrated "that 10 years following mine closure, no treatment of surface or ground water for carcinogens or toxins will be required to meet water quality standards at the point of discharge."

    Finally, there's a new dynamic in the industry with the proliferation and influx of foreign and multinational mining companies (of the five corporations producing nearly 90 percent of the nation's gold, only one is American). These days there's no longer a bunch of US-based companies telling Congress what to do.

    What's more, a clean brand image is desperately sought by the jewelry industry, the biggest market for gold and a passionate advocate of Mining Law reform. Customers of, say, Tiffany's don't want trout blood on their necklaces, rings and bracelets. And, led by Tiffany & Co. CEO Mike Kowalski, the industry has come up with a set of principles that define responsible gold mining. It calls them the "Golden Rules." May all who care about fish and wildlife now prevail on Congress to render the Golden Rules moot.

    And may voters and legislators come to understand that the 1872 Mining Law is a phenomenon that has no parallel in the history of this nation — a relict, as fascinating as it is destructive, as if mastodons foraged in Midwest green fields. It is time to assign all of its abusive provisions permanently to our past and, thereby, to provide respectability and responsibility to what, by law, has been a rogue industry working against the public good.