Reply #23: More on this Pombo bill (AP): 15-20 million acres at stake. Vote this week

[Nothing Without Hope]

This Associated Press article from Nov 11 notes that the vote on the compromise budget bill (the Senate version, which passed last month does NOT have this outrageous rider that Pombo inserted) was postponed until THIS WEEK.

http://www.ewg.org/news/story.php?id=4653

Budget bill seeks to overturn mining ban

By: John Heilprin
Associated Press
November 11, 2005
(snip)

Under existing law, companies have had to convince the Interior Department that the land has a valuable mineral deposit and it can be mined at a profit. Department officials say companies typically spend about $10,000 to $15,000 per acre trying to document that it is economically viable to mine there.

Once a patent is granted, the law does not let the government challenge a company if it drops its plan to mine at a site and resells the property as real estate.

Up to 6 million acres of public lands — those where some 300,000 active mining claims are staked now — could be "patented" under the mining law provision. That includes Western deserts and high prairies, national forests and national parks. There are 900 preexisting mining claims on national parks alone, mostly in California and Alaska.

But officials with the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management, which oversees the mining claims, estimate the amount of public lands that the law could potentially allow to be sold off ranges as high as 15 million to 20 million acres.

(snip)

Quote from Dave Alberswerth, public lands director for The Wilderness Society:

"If this provision became law, it could literally lead to the privatization of millions of acres of public land, including national park and national forest land."