Dale Bumpers: “let me just say to what few colleagues may be listening, in 1976, the Secretary of the Interior was charged with the…”

“let me just say to what few colleagues may be listening, in 1976, the Secretary of the Interior was charged with the responsibility of making sure that people who mine on Federal lands belonging to the taxpayers of America, not cause undue degradation of the land. In 1981, the Secretary promulgated regulations to determine how mining would take place. It was obvious after that that the gold mining companies were using cyanide--cyanide--to mine gold. We have had three unmitigated disasters since 1981. We have cyanide running in the rivers and streams and our underground water supplies of this country. In 1991, Secretary Lujan tried to change the rules so we could take care of that, as well as other things that needed to be taken care of. In 1993, everybody said, ``No, let's wait; we're going to get a new bill.'' Nothing happened. In 1997, Secretary Babbitt started to promulgate rules to try to take care of underground leeching of cyanide poisoning, as well as a whole host of other things. Senator Reid got an amendment put on last year that said every Governor in the West would have to sign off on that. We finally compromised by saying the Secretary would have to consult with Governors of the West, which he did and which they certified that he did.”