Date: 1999-07-14
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Chairman. I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman. I rise in support of this amendment. Those who oppose this amendment would suggest that somehow one day the Solicitor in the Department of the Interior woke -up and redefined the law. The fact is that the law is clear on its face and no location of a millsite shall exceed 5 acres. That is what it said in 1872. and that is what it says today. The history is. in 1872. a month later the General Land Office issued the regulations expressly limiting millsite locations to 5acres. In 1891. the Secretary of the Interior rules that it limits it to 5 acres. In 1903. the Acting Secretary of Interior rules in the Alaska Copper Company. the area of such additional tracts is by the terms of the statute restricted to 5 acres. In 1914. "Lindley on Mines" says it is restricted to 5 acres. And it goes on through this in. 1960. when Congress looks at it and goes back and says. "A millsite may. if necessary for the Claimants mining or milling purposes. consist of more than one tract of land. provided it does not exceed 5 acres in the aggregate." In 1968. the American Mining Congress says that it is 5 acres. They do not like it. but it is 5 acres. This is not about that. What this is about is the mining industry that has done everything they can to keep us from having a reform of the mining law. And the gentlewoman from Wyoming (Mrs. Cubin) recited the pale effort of the other side to pass mining law reform with royalties that turned out to be phantom royalties that meant nothing. It was 5 percent of nothing is nothing when they got done. and the environmental protections and all the rest. And the President is absolutely right to protect the environment and to protect the taxpayers of this country by not going along with that legislation. But this is the law as it is today. And what the mining law companies have decided is they want to go out onto public land and dump their waste onto public land. to build their cyanide heap leaching pads out on public land. and when they are done extracting the ore. they will leave. and the public would be the steward of these waste sites. Well. they have already done that. We have seen this movie. This mining industry has left us with 12.000 miles of streams that suffer from toxic metals and wastes that dribble into those steams. 180.000 acres of lakes where toxic metals are there loaded with lead. cadmium and arsenic. There are more than 500.000 abandoned mines. Yes. this is a boom and bust industry. Right now it is not looking so good. Gold is down below $300. When they leave these facilities. yes. they leave us with the waste. they leave us with the toxics. Right now we expect that the government is going to have to pay between some $32 to $72 billion to try and reclaim these mines. to try to get rid of the toxics. to try to get the materials out of our streams. out of our lakes so that people in the West can enjoy the land that has been spoiled by these mining operations. To have them now come along and dump their waste on public- lands in violation of law. the Solicitor was absolutely correct in his opinion. He was restating the law as it is today. The mining companies do not want to come into the authorizing committee and have a mining law reform and change this to make it 10 acres or 20 acres or whatever they think it should be. under whatever conditions. No. They want to come into an appropriations bill like they did when we were worried about funding the war in Kosovo. They thought that would be a good vehicle to allow them to dump their waste onto public lands. and they got away with it. It turned out to be such a good deal in the Kosovo appropriations that here they are now back in the appropriations process in the Senate. These people do their best work in the middle of the night. They do their best work in the middle of the night. They do not want a debate on policy. about where the waste should be. and the size of these tracks for waste. They do not want a debate on royalties. They do not Want a debate on rents. Why? Because since 1872. they have been fleecing the taxpayer. They have taken billions off of the lands that are owned by the people of the United States and paid nothing. Now. if they take it off of the land of a rancher next door. they pay him 7. 8 percent gross royalties. If they take it off State lands. they pay them a percent of royalties. It is just Uncle Sam that does not get paid. No wonder they are in here with a single shot amendment in the Senate bill to try to overturn the Solicitors opinion. because they do not want this debate. They do not want the debate. So what are we left to? We are left to. on the appropriations bill. trying to stop them from continuing to fleece the taxpayer and take over these public lands for the purposes of dumping their waste. For those of my colleagues who were not familiar with this process. these leach pads are hundreds of feet high. They are huge. They are constantly sprinkled with cyanide to leach out the gold. We move hundreds of tons of dirt and rock and ore and waste to get an ounce of gold. That is this process. Technology has changed the nature of gold mining. Why do we not have a debate on modernizing the gold mining industry? Why do we not have a debate about this industry that now can go into such low grade ore to make this kind of profit? Can they not pay the people of the United States something for the use of the land? No. Their alternative is to come here in the middle of the night and try to strike another rider on the appropriations bill so that they will not have to have that debate. We ought to support the RahallShaysInslee amendment.