David Skaggs: “I urge adoption of this motion. I joined in voting for the patent moratorium when the Interior appropriations bill was…”

“I urge adoption of this motion. I joined in voting for the patent moratorium when the Interior appropriations bill was on the House floor, and I intend to press for retaining the moratorium when we meet in conference with the other body. The time has long since come for reforming the obsolete mining law of 1872. Just this week, we had another reminder of how outdated that law is when Secretary Babbitt was forced to give a foreign mining company ownership of 110 acres of Federal lands containing an estimated billion dollars' worth of minerals--for which the company paid just $275. Let me repeat: under the mining law of 1872, the Federal Government was forced to sell lands with a billion dollars worth of minerals for the grand total of $275, with no provision for the taxpayers--the owners of the Federal lands--to get any royalties, of the kind that are routinely paid in connection when these kinds of minerals are developed on other lands. So, the current situation is bad. But it would be even worse except for the fact that the Interior appropriation bill for the current fiscal year included a partial patent moratorium--that is, a partial moratorium on land sales under the 1872 Act. The effect of that moratorium is to reduce the number of such unfair, budget-busting sales, and so to protect the taxpayers while Congress works to reform the mining law.”