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Mining land sales
set off war of words

Both sides say other has the facts wrong.

By Rebecca Huntington

Wyoming's leading political proponent of lifting a ban on public land sales tied to mining claims, Rep. Barbara Cubin, has charged critics of the measure with spreading "misinformation and outright lies."

But critics have fired back that Rep. Cubin's comments show "an appalling lack of understanding" of the 1872 mining law.

The fight over the mining provision has been fierce since environmental groups first highlighted the measure tacked onto a budget bill by the U.S. House of Representatives.

The Wyoming Wildlife Federation has been lobbying U.S. Sens. Craig Thomas and Mike Enzi, both R-Wyo., to strip the measure before the bill wins final approval in the House and Senate. In addition, five Democratic Western governors joined Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal, also a Democrat, to oppose the measure in a letter sent to Congress late last week. The governors say selling public lands to miners, and possibly other developers, could block public access to areas prized for hunting, fishing and other recreation.

But Cubin disagrees that the provision would jeopardize multiple-use on public lands. Moreover, she said it's time to reform the 1872 mining law to return mining jobs, now going overseas, to the United States.

"The amount of misinformation and outright lies put out on this provision by the environmental obstructionists is their typical modus operandi," Cubin said in a written statement.

In particular, Cubin blasted critics for inflating estimates of how much land could be sold under the bill. Cubin says only 15,000 acres in Wyoming qualifies for sale under the provision.

Environmentalists dispute that figure. Wyoming has about 354,000 acres in current mining claims that could be privatized under the proposal, and more claims could be filed in the future, according to the Environmental Working Group.

But Cubin's spokesman countered that all those claims do not have "approved plans of operations" ­ one criteria for patenting, or sale, in the provision.

While Cubin's office says the hurdles for patenting are high and costly, John Leshy, the Interior Department's top lawyer during the Clinton administration and author of a book on the 1872 mining law, disagrees.

In addition to lifting the moratorium, the provision would "relax" the test for a patent that has been on the books since 1872, he said. The proposal contains a separate new mechanism for privatizing federal lands that has little to do with mining, but rather is aimed at rural development, he said.

Cubin defended the provision as allowing "local communities to work with mining companies to bring sustainable economic development to the area."

Cubin also said in a statement that the moratorium on patents "means no new claims are being developed and no potential royalties are heading back to the state or federal treasuries."

But Leshy said such statements "reveal an appalling lack of understanding of how the mining law has worked in practice ever since it was enacted into law 133 years ago."

Miners have never been required to have a patent, or to own land, to mine it, he said. According to the Environmental Working Group, which cites federal statistics, 70,000 new mining claims were staked on public lands during the last year.

Moreover, hard rock mining generates no royalties for the federal treasury, Leshy said. In fact, Leshy said imposing royalties would be a better way to raise revenue for the federal government than selling off public land.

Cubin omitted the "no new claims" assertion in a revised statement published Sunday in the Casper Star-Tribune. But her spokesman Joe Milczewski said her point that mining is declining because of the moratorium still stands. In 1993, before the moratorium, 20 percent of world investment in hard rock mining occurred in the United States, according to a mineral industry survey. This year, only 8 percent of investments were made in the United States, he said.