Congress is about to rip off the tax payers of this country by overturning a congressional ban on a little known 19th century law that allowed the sale of public land to mining interests for the Wal-Mart price of $2.50 to $5.00 an acre. In 1994 Congress had the sound mind to ban this obscure law because they understood that selling some of America’s most scenic public lands for such rock bottom prices to companies that turned millions in profits on those lands was an outright ripoff.

Most of the public lands that fell under the 1994 ban are in the West, including tens of thousands of acres in Oregon. Unfortunately, those same lands could now be up for grabs if Congress approves a provision, overturning the ban, that has been quietly tucked into the budget bill.

House representatives, however, think that by increasing the price to $1,000 an acre, or “fair market value”, will make everything a.o.k. because it will raise enough money for mining cleanups and schools that offer training in petroleum, mining or mineral engineering. That’s right, the money that the public makes on the sale of the land will be used to clean up the mess made by the companies we’ve sold to and will train future miners for whom we will continue to clean up after.

There’s a lot at stake:

Up to 6 million acres of public lands — those where some 300,000 active mining claims are staked now — could be “patented” under the mining law provision. That includes Western deserts and high prairies, national forests and national parks.

Yes, you read that right: our national parks could be up for sale too. Moreover, Congress has decided to put a little cherry on top of this scandalous decision:

…the [new] law does not let the government challenge a company if it drops its plan to mine at a site and resells the property as real estate.

Prior to this, if companies could not demonstrate that mining in a particular area was profitable enough they would give up their mining patent and the government would retain the land. Since rightwing conservatives despise the concept of any kind of public ownership, this is how they are changing the system in order to privatize all of the nation’s public lands.

Would Oregon’s land use laws, if they stay in tact, apply to these newly privatized properties? Who’s going to buy the Steens?

Please contact your Congressional representatives today and let them know you oppose the sale of our treasured public lands.

For more information on public lands and mining rights held in Oregon visit the Environmental Working Group website.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 10th, 2005 at 1:54 pm and is filed under Economy, Environment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.