Politics and Nature
Red or Blue? Mining Law Defeat is Proof the West is Neither
By Eric Mack, 12-16-05
The recent debacle over proposed changes to the archaic 1872 mining law that were tucked into a federal budget bill by Nevada Republican Representative Jim Gibbons has revealed some important truths about the politics of land use in the New West.Opposition to the measure rushed like an avalanche down both sides of the continental divide, bridging a highly polarized national political divide and rendering the solid red block that covered the Rocky Mountain states on electoral maps a year ago completely irrelevant.
Letters flooded fax machines in the 202 area code from a broad spectrum of groups ranging from mountain cities and counties, hunting and fishing groups to politicians from both parties, mining law professors, former federal officials, enviros and even a group representing the jewelry industry. All of them were “disturbed," “troubled" or in a variety of other distressed states over Gibbons’ legislation, which would allow for the “patenting," or sale at bargain-basement prices, of hundreds of thousands if not millions of acres mining claims on public lands. (It’s ridiculously cheap and easy for anyone to stake a mining claim, by the way.) http://www.mineweb.net/columns/american_notes/701743.htm" title=" http://www.mineweb.net/columns/american_notes/701743.htm"> Once patented, the land would be open to any of a myriad of development options like real estate or oil and gas exploration. Even mining industry publications were critical of the measure.
Before we can understand how such a disparate alliance materialized so quickly around a relatively obscure issue, it is worth looking into the possible motivations behind the genesis of the legislation.
Gibbons’ primary fellow proponent, California Republican and House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo, has built his political capital through attempts to bulldoze any pesky government regulation that stands in the way of development, most notably his recent attempts to eviscerate the Endangered Species Act.
As for Gibbons himself, he is currently running for governor of Nevada, a mining state where over 80 percent of lands are owned by the federal government. With that in mind, his budget language appears to be (literally) one of the biggest pieces of pork in political history, until we note that none of the companies that would benefit the most from the legislation are based in Nevada. In fact, most of them are foreign companies.
It is worth noting that three mining companies that have staked almost a combined 600,000 acres worth of mining claims on public lands contributed over $60,000 to Gibbons’ political campaigns over the last decade. The bulk of those donations came from Denver-based Newmont Mining, which has over 347,000 acres worth of public claims, more than any other single claim-holder.
Given the record number of industry hand-outs and other pork projects that have been flowing from Washington, Gibbons’ audacity is hardly surprising. What he failed to factor into the equation was the unwillingness of Westerners from all political stripes to sacrifice the sacred cow of public lands. Land uses in the West are more varied and interconnected than perhaps in any other region. Here, a single 20-acre parcel might fuel local economies through tourism, recreation, agriculture, hunting and fishing, and yes, natural resource extraction. More and more, situations that bring these uses into direct conflict are creating strange political bedfellows, as Jim Gibbons recently discovered.
One of the arguments Gibbons put forth in support of the sale of mining claims on public lands was that it would boost the economies of towns where mines had ceased operations. He must have been surprised to read a letter from the San Miguel County, Colorado Commissioners expressing opposition and detailing their efforts to return patented lands at one of the largest precious metal mines near Telluride back to the public domain to prevent further development.
As Art Goodtimes, Chair of the Commissioners, explained, the “Red Mountain Project" is a “collaborative effort with the United States Forest Service, the Trust for Public Lands, the Idarado Mining Company and other owners of patented mining claim (that) has resulted in the transfer into federal ownership of thousands of acres."
Similar letters came in from Aspen and other communities hemmed in by public lands. They weighed the potential benefits of expanded development against the loss of public ownership and preservation and concluded that quality of life is a more sound investment than a subdivision.
That same philosophy is bringing together people from all walks of life across the West to form organizations like the Cimarron Watershed Alliance in Northern New Mexico. The CWA is one of New Mexico’s most active rural conservation groups, made up largely of rugged, Texas-style ranchers who would prefer not to be told what they can and can’t do on their land, but understand the need for cooperation among all land users to preserve the vital resources that allow them to live off the land.
"This is a unique group of individuals, business owners, politicians, ranchers, homeowners, government people from the Forest Service, Environmental Protection Agency and Soil Conservation — groups of people that usually don't agree on issues — who all come together in cooperation to maintain the watershed, not only for the current generation, but for generations to come," explained CWA Executive Director Mike Bain. "They put adversities aside to make it happen and that says a lot about the group." CWA stakeholders work together to ensure that land uses like grazing, road maintenance and recreation are done in a manner that maintains the health of the watershed.
Within the Cimarron Watershed lies the Valle Vidal, a section of pristine National Forest land treasured by outdoor enthusiasts, sportsmen, environmentalists and most recently, El Paso Corporation, which hopes to drill the area for gas, a proposal that has created another unifying rallying point for all of the above yet again. Just this week, the groundswell of support from across the political spectrum, and with a significant nudge from Democratic Governor Bill Richardson, led to the designation of Valle Vidal waters as an Outstanding National Resource, which offers the highest level of protection under the Clean Water Act.
For centuries, the West has been a land of iconic natural landscapes populated with robust individualists seeking an escape from the cement and steel congestion of the East. Today, development-oriented politicians are finding out there’s not much that a community of individualists is willing to trade for their paradise. After all, what do you give someone who already has everything?
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Excellent background explanation on the attempt to alter the mining law, Eric. Other than the industry giveaway element of the Gibbons and Pombo's idea, the background and reasoning has not been made clear anywhere else that I've read.
Also, I think the debate over the continued existence of the public lands is one of the mst interesting and critical debates in the US today. It is almost certain that we will lose some of them (esp. in Nevada, where it has already begun)) as development pressures reach the explosive level. How will we decide which to divest, and how can that "divestiture" (the term used by those who hate the concept of public lands and salivate at the prospect of its demise) be adjusted so it is not used as a precedent to start a firesale of all of them? The nuances, flexibility and objectivity that will be required to effectively deal with the public lands issue seem to be beyond the scope of human reasoning, at least as far as we have seen human reasoning capacity lately. Especially since, as we have seen with Gibbons and Pombo, backalley profit agendas will be always be thick as fleas on the belly of a pariah dog.
Perhaps we could enshrine the existing public lands though legislation? Unlikely, given the pressures and conflicts over their use already.
But if we continue to see the extremism manifest by Gibbons, Pombo, Gale Norton, Paul Hofffman and the rest of the folks at Bush's Interior, we as westerners (and as Americans) will have to simply fight every attempt to change public lands policy, since every change at these folks hands will be to give them away to private profit endeavors with zero consideration of such less tangible values as wildlife, freedom to wander, shoot a rifle, take your children morel hunting, on and on...and there will be, really, no concern for local communities-- in the current plans that come from Interior, "local control" was a big catch phrase early on, but as soon as locals objected to any plan to give the lands over to industry, the phrase local control" was dropped like a hot rock.
The Pombo/Gibbons giveaway reveals much about these two men, and the extremist political climate of today, but more, it reveals that the public lands issue is heating up to the boiling point. Lots of pressure already. Where will it go? What will we see in ten years?
Hal Herring
Excellent background on a confusing story. The fact that Gibbons'/Pombo's attempt to alter the mining law and hide the alteration was a giveaway of public assets was painfully obvious-- but you have clarified much that was hidden.
Now: Gibbons and Pombo are extremists, and reflect the extremism of the current political climate, which is less a red or blue issue but a struggle for reason and balance against the forces of corporate greed and its well-paid lackeys. Men like Pombo cannot be ignored, and their destructive and gestures must be, and in part have been, addressed by citizens.
But the Gibbons plan is merely a ridiculous extreme of a hundred or a thousand other plans to sell public lands that we can expect over the coming years. Development, population, and resource demand pressures are putting the concept of the public lands into the strong light of inspection from all angles. It would be wonderful (in my opinion) and unique in the world if the US decided to enshrine the public lands, and the concept of the public lands, with iron-clad legislation, now before the frenzy over what to do with them reaches full flower. However, that is not going to happen.
The question is what will happen to these 240 million acres over the next twenty years? An acre of overgrazed BLM prairie in the Missouri Breaks may not be sought after, but that land you refer to around Aspen certainly is, and somebody, somewhere, right now, is talking about the fantastic economic boom that will befall them and others when "divestiture" (the term used by those who salivate at the idea of privatizing federal lands) becomes a reality. There are millions of people who don't care a whit whether westerners have a place to ride their horses, shoot their guns or take their children morel picking. These folks would say that if you want the freedom to ride a horse around, bow your back and make the money and buy you a ranch. These folks do not recognize any value in intangibles like vast open spaces or the beauty of undeveloped prairie, and there is a huge question as to whether these folks are or are not in the majority in the US. Yes, the Gibbons giveaway was rejected across the board by westerners, but it was an absurd plan, so absurd that it had to be hidden away in the budget bill. Much more "reasonable" plans will soon be appearing. And those plans will be the deciding factors of what the West will look and feel like in twenty years. How do you allow for the sale of some federal lands without setting the precedent that will result in a firesale? (It’s already happening with BLM lands around Las Vegas) Who decides what will be sold? Remember when the Bush Interior people spoke of "local control" of federal lands? It turned out that they meant "as long as locals agree with us that industry should be given first priority on federal lands." When locals asked for more protection, the phrase "local control"
disappeared from the lingo. Most of us are cognizant of the current crop of Interior appointees and their history of being actively hostile to even the concept of public lands--but I don't think any of us ever envisioned public lands management for private industry like we see now in the Red Desert or the Jonah Gas Field. Arguably, you might see better environmental protection if the land was in private hands. But you certainly could not say that on the grand scale that is the federal estate in the West. So what is the answer? What will happen to our public lands in ten years? in twenty? We'll still have the Parks, almost certainly (though Paul Hoffman might disagree with that). But what about the 100s of 1000s of acres of BLM? What about the National Forests? Have we fought over their management so long and so bitterly that a future generation will simply say, "good riddance" and sell them to the highest bidder? Or will it come about in secrecy, couched in liberatrian rhetoric and right wing pro-business grandeur? Or from the left--remember when the Tutsis suggested that there was enough land in the Adirondacks for a Tutsi homeland to solve the horror of Rwanda? Are such vast public holdings not an indulgence in a world growing more crowded by the hour?
Fundamental questions.
Hal
Don't be thinking the Mining Act bill is a sea change in Western thinking. It was, even to this mining supporter, who supports the ability of mining companies to patent viable claims and then, when all is said and done, reclaim and resell the lands for other purposes, a rotten bill.
I mean, what the heck is "sustainable economic development?" Just a buzz phrase, to be defined by whoever is the better spin flack. There was nothing in there to give any kind of certainty about which lands really qualified, or if they even had to host significant, employment-generating mines.
I'm sure Gibbons and Pombo learned a lesson. But as for having an honest debate about mining's role in America...or any kind of honest debate about public lands use...pshaw. The best liars will win.