The Obama administration will make reforming the nation’s 137-year-old hardrock mining law a top priority despite a full plate of higher profile issues, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said.
Salazar told a Senate committee considering reform legislation that “it is time to ensure a fair return to the public for mining activities that occur on public lands and to address the cleanup of abandoned mines.”
The General Mining Act of 1872, which gives mining preference over other uses on much of the nation’s public lands, has left a legacy of hundreds of thousands of abandoned mines that are polluting rivers and streams throughout the West. Mining companies also don’t pay royalties on gold, silver, copper and other hardrock minerals mined on public land.
Reform bills have been introduced in the House and Senate, but past attempts at reform have foundered in the face of opposition from industry and many Western lawmakers.
However, a new crop of conservation-minded lawmakers from the West and a new administration sympathetic to reforming the law have generated renewed interest in an overhaul. (AP)
