Opinion ID: 780329
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Valuable minerals

Text: 63 The SRHA's reservation does not contain the adjective valuable. Instead, the SRHA simply reserves all the coal and other minerals to the United States. 43 U.S.C. § 299(a). As discussed, the SRHA's contemporaneous enactment and analogous purpose are instructive to a degree. But, because the SRHA does not use the modifier valuable, we cannot conclude simply that the two reservations are coextensive. [I]t is `a cardinal principle of statutory construction that a statute ought, upon the whole, to be so construed that, if it can be prevented, no clause, sentence, or word shall be superfluous, void, or insignificant.' City of Los Angeles v. United States Dep't of Commerce, 307 F.3d 859, 870 (9th Cir.2002) (quoting TRW Inc. v. Andrews, 534 U.S. 19, 122 S.Ct. 441, 449, 151 L.Ed.2d 339 (2001)). 64 Contemporaneous government publications persuade us that, even if Congress intended the word valuable to limit the kinds of minerals reserved to the United States, sand and gravel were reserved. As early as 1914, five years before the Pittman Act was passed, the Department of the Interior devoted a full section of its annual publication, Mineral Resources of the United States, to sand and gravel. The publication described the increase in production of sand and gravel since 1904, culminating in a reported yield of more than 79 million tons in 1914, which was valued at close to $24 million. 5 Department of the Interior, Mineral Resources of the United States 1914, at 271 (1916). 65 In succeeding years, the publication on mineral resources continued to analyze the sand and gravel industry. The government report for 1916 noted that the production of sand and gravel was unprecedentedly large. All kinds of sands increased in total value.... From many parts of the country it was reported by producers that they could not get enough men to operate at the desired capacity or enough cars to meet their requirements. Mineral Resources of the United States 1916, at 327 (1919). In 1917, the production of sand and gravel in the United States was valued at more than $35 million. 6 Mineral Resources of the United States 1917, at 381 (1920). The Department of the Interior noted that [o]nly four natural nonmetallic minerals produced in the United States ... show a greater annual value than that of sand and gravel. Id. 66 Even acknowledging that sand and gravel were valuable in some areas at the time of enactment, BedRoc contends, there could have been no viable market for the sand and gravel in this parcel at the time of this patent. BedRoc urges that we apply a site-specific analysis to determine whether a resource is valuable. As support for that proposition, BedRoc argues that the term valuable minerals has the same meaning as the term valuable mineral deposits in the General Mining Act of 1872 (General Mining Law). That law determines how minerals are disposed of when they are discovered on public lands. 30 U.S.C. § 22 et seq. 67 According to BedRoc, Congress meant valuable to limit the reservation of rights to minerals that would be locatable under the General Mining Law. It follows, BedRoc urges, that we should determine whether sand and gravel are valuable minerals under the Pittman Act in the same way that we would determine whether a claimant had discovered valuable mineral deposits under the General Mining Law. Under the General Mining Law, we consider whether land contains valuable mineral deposits through application of the prudent-man test. W. Nuclear, 462 U.S. at 58 n. 18, 103 S.Ct. 2218. In other words, we ask whether the challenged mineral deposit is the kind that would lead a prudent person to believe that a commercially viable mine could be operated with respect to that deposit. Id. Because that question is essentially factual, BedRoc argues that summary judgment was inappropriate. 68 We disagree with BedRoc's assertion that the two statutes refer to the same concept. The term valuable is used differently in the General Mining Law than in the Pittman Act. In the General Mining Law, the key phrase is valuable mineral deposits.  30 U.S.C. § 22 (emphasis added). The adjective valuable does not modify the noun minerals as in the Pittman Act; rather, it modifies the noun deposits, and the word mineral also modifies deposits. 69 The two terms — valuable minerals and valuable mineral deposits — are not synonymous. Not every deposit of minerals — no matter how valuable the mineral itself may be — is sufficient to constitute a valuable mineral deposit under the General Mining Law. A gold or silver deposit undoubtedly is made up of valuable minerals but, unless the deposit is significant enough and accessible enough to justify the expense of extraction, it is not a valuable mineral deposit under the General Mining Law. See W. Nuclear, 462 U.S. at 58 n. 18, 103 S.Ct. 2218 (discussing the standard). 7 70 Moreover, we disagree with BedRoc's contention that the question here is factual and site-specific. Rather, as in Western Nuclear, the question is a straightforward legal one regarding congressional intent as to the scope of the mineral reservation contained in the statute. Id. at 53-056, 103 S.Ct. 2218. When a mineral reservation is part of the statute itself, we follow the Supreme Court's lead and interpret that reservation using the usual tools of statutory construction. Id.; cf. United States v. Hess, 194 F.3d 1164, 1170-72 (10th Cir.1999) (construing the scope of a reservation in a patent issued under the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) and distinguishing Western Nuclear on the ground that the IRA itself did not contain a mineral reservation). 71 The prudent-person test makes sense when trying to decide whether a claimant has located a vein or lode of minerals that is sufficient to satisfy the requirements for a mining claim on federal land. See 30 U.S.C. § 22. The concept of value defines the deposit and thus the commercial viability of the claim. However, it does not follow that the United States meant to impose this same constraint upon itself when it reserved all the coal and other valuable minerals under the Act. Had Congress intended to import the prudent-person test from the General Mining Law into the reservation of valuable minerals to the United States, it likely would have done so explicitly.