Therefore, federal land managing agencies continue to spend a good deal of time, money, and energy in clearing invalid, unpatented mining claims from the federal lands, and otherwise combating various Mining Law abuses. Regulatory efforts are highly diffuse and ineffective and leave few resources available for environmental protection. Conclusion Mining, per se, may not be evil. What is wrong is the incentives at work that not only encourage, but mandate, gross environmental, economic, and cultural destruction. Letting the agency that manages the surface resources also manage the subsurface ones allows a better balancing.
Minerals trump everything else, no matter what or how valuable.
So any reform of the 1872 law that transfers minerals to agencies with surface rights must also give those agencies balanced incentives.