Keep 1872 Mining Act, says Mining Congress

The AMC has taken particular exception to a report filed by the General Accounting Office (GAO) which was critical of filing fee, patent, and claim maintenance features of the law. These are the very mechanisms that have made it work so well for more than a century, the AMC argues.

“This remarkable law, which has served the best interests of our nation and the mining industry for 117 years, is being dragged into a legislative cauldron for all the wrong reasons,” says John Knebel, president of the AMC. “The stakes are high for the mining industry and the country.”

Knebel says the flames of reform have been fanned primarily by two events: patenting of 82,000 acres of oil shale claims last year following decades of litigation; and the GAO report which he argues contains “sensational allegations about the Mining Law.”

An AMC review of the GAO report has turned up what he describes as “glaring factual errors” which it plans to publicize across the country in the coming weeks.

Knebel is concerned that changes to the Mining Law will weaken “a vital and healthy industry.” Recalling how restrictive federal legislation almost dismantled one of the country’s basic industries in the early 1980s, he cautions that “the industry could begin again the cycle of economic crash-and-burn reminiscent of a few short years ago.”

The AMC review concludes that every one of the supporting bases used in the GAO report are either conceptually invalid, in plain error, or factually incomplete. As well, the AMC claims its investigation establishes that the present assessment work requirement on public lands promotes mineral development and the patent provisions of the Mining Law are not abused.

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