Date: 1999-05-18
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Speaker. I rise in strong opposition to the supplemental spending bill. Mr. Speaker. as we prepare to vote on the Conference Report to provide spending for military aid and hurricane disaster relief. Members should be aware of a thus far successful effort by the mining industry and its supporters in the Other Body to include in the conference report yet another antienvironmental rider. This time. the rider would stop.the Secretary of the Interior from properly carrying out his duties under the 1872 Mining Law by allowing mining companies to claim an unlimited number of acres of public land for waste disposal. The issue arose from a March 25. 1999. joint decision by the U.S. Departments of Interior and Agriculture denying a large openpit. cyanideleach gold mine in eastern Washington State which had illegally claimed hundreds of acres of public land as "millsites." Millsite claims were originally intended for structures to process the mined ore from the mineral claims. now they are usually used to dump waste rock and tailings (whats left after the mineral has been extracted). To be valid. millsites cannot contain a valuable mineral. The mining law holds that millsite claims are limited to 5 acres in size and allows only one 5acre millsite claim per mineral claim. Before the March 25th decision mining companies were often permitted. albeit illegally. as many millsite claims as they needed. no matter how many mineral claims they had. And the modern mining industry generally needs many more millsite claims than mineral claims. Since this decision to fully and consistently enforce the law. 5 acres of milisite claim waste disposal space is all that is available per mineral claim. The decision by the Department of the Interior is significant because of the precedent it setsenforcing a provision of the 1872 Mining Law that limits the amount of public land. adjacent to mines. which can be. used to dump waste from mining. With enforcement. the decision gives federal land managers the right to deny mine permits that propose to dump excessive amounts of mine wastes on valuable public lands and it may make economically marginal ore deposits unprofitable to develop. The space required to dump the massive waste rock piles produced at many of todays mines exceeds the legal limits under the 1872 Mining Law which Congress should have reformed years ago. Mine waste dumps pollute surface and groundwater resources with acid mine drainage and heavy metals such as arsenic. Permitting more such waste to be dumped on public lands is simply not an acceptable solution. Thats what the industry wants and thats what this rider would do. It would legalize wastedumping that is now illegal. The 1872 mining law has given away billions of dollars of the nations mineral wealth while paying taxpayers. who own the minerals. not one cent in royalties. And the law has only minimal limited environmental safeguards. Polls show that a significant majority of Americans continue to support strong mining law reform. But instead of an open debate on the mining law. the industry wants an exemption from this part of the law that theyve discovered is no longer to their liking. Instead of engaging in backroom politics. the mining industry should engage in an open public debate about reforming all of the mining law. not just the part it doesnt like. And Congress should not permit a lastsecond. stealth rider to be addedto a nongermane bill with no public debate.