Political Quotes

“I rise today to reintroduce legislation in a dramatically different form to reinstate two small miner's claims, which have been taken from them because of an inequitable federal administrative process. Under revisions to the Federal Mining Law of 1872, 30 U.S.C. 28(f) holders of unpatented mineral claims must pay a claim maintenance fee originally set at $100 per claim by a deadline, set by regulation, of September l each year. Since 2004 that fee has risen to $140 per claim. But Congress also provided a claim maintenance fee waiver for ``small'' miners, those who hold 10 or fewer claims, so that they do not have to submit the fee, but that they must file to renew their claims and submit an affidavit of annual labor, work conducted on the claim, each year, certifying that they had performed more than $100 of work on the claim in the preceding year, 30 U.S.C. 28f(d)(1). The waiver provision further states: ``If a small miner waiver application is determined to be defective for any reason, the claimant shall have a period of 60 days after receipt of written notification of the defect or defects by the Bureau of Land Management to: A) cure such defect or defects or (B) pay the . . . claim maintenance fee(s) due for such a period.'' Since past revisions of the law, there have been a series of incidents where miners have argued that they submitted their applications and affidavits of annual labor in a timely manner, but due to clerical error by U.S.…”