Good news for now on selling parkland to developers.  Phyllis Mains



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Los Angeles Times 
December 14, 2005 

Revisions of Mining Law Put On Hold; 
Critics say the proposals, purged from budget bill, could have led to
selling 
parkland to developers. A Nevada congressman says he'll try again. 
BY Janet Wilson and Bettina Boxall 

Republicans in Congress late Tuesday stripped proposed mining law
revisions from 
a budget bill that critics said could have led to the sell-off of
millions of 
acres of federal land, including portions of national parks and forests,
such as 
Death Valley National Park and Mojave National Preserve. 

The package faced mounting bipartisan opposition from Western senators,
whose 
support was crucial, after scores of groups, including a coalition of
hunting 
and fishing interests, complained. A Senate spokesman said opposition to
the 
mining law revisions could have jeopardized passage of the budget bill. 

In an interview with The Times, the author of the proposals, Rep. Jim
Gibbons 
(R-Nev.), denied that criticism from park officials, hunting and fishing
groups, 
and others had led to the decision. He said the furor was the result of 
"intentionally false and misleading information put out by anti-mining
groups 
... that had no impact on the fact that we are here today." 

Gibbons vowed to reintroduce what he called comprehensive mining reform 
legislation in the new year. 

"Of course I'm disappointed," Gibbons said. "The process over on the
Senate side 
was a hurdle we could not overcome. But I am committed to bringing the
mining 
law of this country into the 21st century." 

The legislation, which came out of the House Resources Committee, chaired
by 
Rep. Richard W. Pombo (R-Tracy), would have lifted a moratorium on the
sale, or 
patenting, of federally owned lands and allowed private development. 

Gibbons said such legislation was needed to help poor, rural communities
survive 
after mining operations closed down and to maintain a domestic mining
industry. 

Critics, who had been caught off-guard when the mining provisions were
tucked 
into the House's massive budget bill last month, welcomed the news that
they had 
been stripped as part of the reconciliation process between the House and
the 
Senate. 

"Excellent. That's a big relief," said Larry Whalon, acting
superintendent for 
Mojave National Preserve, which is studded with 432 active mining claims
that he 
feared could have been sold to private developers after being mined. 

"We talked about condominiums," he said. "There was also the possibility
of 
landfills." 

Whalon and others said they would be better prepared to review any new
proposals 
as they came up. "The cat's out of the bag now," he said. 

Death Valley park Supt. J.T. Reynolds concurred: "It's a welcome stay of 
execution." 

Sid Smith, a spokesman for Sen. Larry E. Craig (R-Idaho), said that under
budget 
reconciliation rules, the provisions could have required a 60-vote
majority, 
which would have been difficult to win, and might have torpedoed the
entire 
budget package, including language opening Alaska's Arctic National
Wildlife 
Refuge to oil drilling, which the Senate has approved. 

"To be honest, [Craig] was concerned that the mining reform package might
... 
make it difficult for the budget bill to pass," Smith said. "There was
concern 
that there were a few environmentally related issues like ANWR in the
budget 
bill, and if we had a few too many, those sorts of things might galvanize
some 
opposition to the budget bill as a whole." 

Craig also was concerned that access for sportsmen might be limited by
private 
land sales allowed under Gibbons' mining law revisions, Smith said. He
added 
that Craig would probably be opposed to any land sale in national parks,
but was 
interested in working on a strong mining reform act next year. 

In recent weeks, key GOP senators from Colorado, Wyoming and Montana
expressed 
misgivings about the land sales, agreeing with Senate Democrats Dianne
Feinstein 
of California and Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico. 

Republican Sen. Conrad Burns of Montana was quoted in his home-state
press as 
saying the bill was "crazy" and "not going anywhere." 

On Tuesday, a coalition of more than two dozen hunting and fishing groups

claiming to represent 55 million hunters and fishermen sent a letter to
Rep. Jim 
Nussle, an Iowa Republican who chairs the House Budget Committee, and
Rep. John 
M. Spratt Jr., a South Carolina Democrat and the committee's ranking
minority 
member, expressing "serious concerns." 

"America's hunters and anglers depend upon public lands and waters ... to
pursue 
their tradition of hunting and fishing," the groups wrote. "This proposal
to 
sell public land is being universally poorly received throughout the
hunting and 
angling community." 

Conservation groups also were pleased. Velma Smith, Mining Campaign
Director for 
the National Environmental Trust, said: "America's treasured public lands
got an 
early holiday present today when Congressman Gibbons announced that he
would 
retract his land giveaway plan from the House's budget bill." 

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