The approach of this legislation is to simply make all mining claims valid--with or without the discovery of a valuable mineral deposit.

Interesting. You see, this bill includes extremely broad definitions of what it means to 'use and occupy land' for 'mining-related activities.'

Thank you. And if I wanted to file a handful of these claims, known otherwise as 'nuisance claims,' might I be able to potentially extract large sums of money from the Federal Government in exchange for giving up my claim?

Thank you. And Dr. Feldgus, if I decided I wanted to prevent a new solar farm, a wind project, or a transmission line, and I filed a mining claim in the path of a project before the renewable energy project secured their rights of way…

And to reiterate, there are about 1,100 active mining claims within national parks presently.

Thank you so much, Chairman.

I represent the Bronx. I represent kids whose only meal that they will eat in an entire day will be from school.

If you do not have a home or a bed to lay your head on, how are you going to perform well in school?

The Bronx has one of the highest childhood asthma rates in the country.

I think it is political theater that we are seeing in this Committee room, that we are seeing in the halls of Congress right now to not humanize the reality of what we are actually talking about.

the idea of slamming the door when we desperately need these migrants, when we desperately need it, and what we need is an orderly process.