a posthumous presidential address
Mining Law Reform Movement Summons Ulysses S. Grant
By Grant Rhodes, 3-26-08
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| Former President Ulysses S. Grant (or at least a very convincing look-alike) speaks out for reform of the 1872 Mining Law, which he himself passed. Photos by Grant Rhodes | |
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No, you weren’t caught in a time warp Wednesday morning if you drove past the Missoula County Courthouse. That was Ulysses S. Grant speaking behind the podium. As part of a campaign called “Farewell to 1872,” the eighteenth president of the United States (or at least a very convincing look-alike) was in the Garden City to speak about reform of the Mining Law of 1872, which he passed himself, 136 years ago.
The speech was organized by the Pew Campaign for Responsible Mining, and Missoula was the first stop in the former president’s four-city tour. With wife Julia standing by his side, the president formally bid farewell to the law by reading from and signing a proclamation. The law, which was passed seventeen years before Montana became a state, gives mining of gold, uranium and other hardrock metals priority over other land uses on most public lands regardless of the environmental impact the mining may have.
State Representative Michele Reinhart, from House District 97 in Missoula, spoke following the president, saying, “We must say goodbye to the mining ways of the past….In this day and age, our land and water are much more precious than gold.”
Among the highlights of the proclamation and the ensuing speech read by the president:
- The Western population has increased from one million to 70 million since 1872.
- Over 500,000 thousand abandoned mines now scar the Western landscape.
- The Federal Government estimates that cleanup costs from Hardrock mining may run as high as $50 billion.
- Hard rock mining is the top emitter of toxic pollutants into our water supply.
- The mining industry currently pays no royalties on gold, uranium and other precious metals it removes from public lands.
- The current law has outlived 24 presidents.
Last November, the U.S. House of Representatives passed HR2262, the Hardrock Mining Reform and Restoration Act. The bill no longer gives public land priority to mining claims and institutes various environmental safeguards that didn’t exist in the Nineteenth Century. It would also require mining companies to make royalty payments of eight percent of their gross income when mining a claim on federal lands, or four percent if the claim existed before passage of the bill. 
Reinhart is just one of many Montana representatives, along with mayors and former state politicians, who have signed a letter to Senators Max Baucus and Jon Tester thanking them for their work on the process of reform and urging them to draft a version of the bill for the Senate as soon as possible.
“Forty percent of the Western watershed is polluted by mining waste,” said Land Tawney, from Sportsmen for Responsible Mining. “We have two great senators in a position to do something for Montana.”
Tawney then quoted another former president, Theodore Roosevelt when he said, “I admire the man, and woman, who will take the next step, not those who will theorize about the 200th.” He then urged Baucus and Tester to take that crucial next step.
President Grant and the “Farewell to 1872” campaign will next make stops in Portland, Denver and Albuquerque. And while the President’s proclamation has no legal bearing, since he’s, um, dead, the campaign hopes to raise more awareness for mining law reform.
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Comments
!. Homestead act thus the Swedes, Germans & other hard heads that are my ancestors!
2. Railroad acts- Thus Plum Creek owning so much of MT!
3. 1872 mining act! Probably made sense in 1872!
Not now! Gold-$1000 oz. Lots of $ to lobby Congress to keep the law the way it is. How about passing Hr 2262 as a modest gesture for the environmental price we westerners have paid for jewelry!!
We have to mine in the US or import all we use. If the intent is to use less here, to manufacture less, to produce less fertilizer, soda ash for glass, whatever the mined product, including aggregate for concrete and lime for making cement, we will become a third world country: import food and consumer goods, export commodities and human capital, our learned skills, a cheap place to visit for tourists.
Making law that makes mining not economically viable in the US does nothing more than to make us dependent upon mines in other countries. We are suffering from that malaise with oil at the present time. And because we are paying for our oil with dollars we don't have, our currency has lost value, raising the prices of all imports, except lumber which has no home here due to monetary problems and increased imports of oil. The old downward spiral. Next up is a nationwide trucker strike to shut down the movement of goods for a week. That way we all suffer what truckers are now suffering: insolvency.
Oregon should have figured out the future when Freightliner (owned now by DaimlerBenz) left town. You can't sell trucks when the truckers can't afford fuel. The Germans knew what was coming, it appears.
If US Grant were precient, he would have signed a bill that addressed pollution. But that was not an issue at the time. Independence from European money lenders to build the American economy was. Until the great mines of the West were in production, capital to grow had to be borrowed from European bankers because they had the gold and silver, and we had none except what had been gained in trade, and some placer gold in Georgia. The 1872 Mining Law was instrumental in our economic success as a Nation. If we make a new law that shuts down mining with red tape, taxes and royalties, deposits to congressional slush funds that are spent elsewhere as that body is wont to do, there will be little or no new mining, and our offshore dependences will only increase. Another step on our path to becoming the next Africa, as dysfunctional in politics and economics as it is diverse in flora and fauna, full of wildlife rangers and resource exploiters all packing automatic weapons, greasing the palms of government for favors and campaign contributions, all the while avoiding taxes, tough decisions.
THe US has made the decision not to drill for oil in known places where oil exists. We are saving the planet, and you get to pay for it. And the Chinese could give a rat's ass. They build their new coal fired power plant each week, and we turn food into fuel to make sure we raise food prices, too. Now we are being told the ocean currents have changed a little, and global warming in North America is off for a decade or so. But it will be back, with vigor at the end of that cycle. I am damned happy. Anything to keep us in an inter glacial and not racing for the next ice age is wonderful in my mind. But I do wonder how I am going to keep warm in the winters to come. Maybe fire up the wood stove again. Get a firewood permit from the USFS or BLM, and foul the air. Progress. Shut down that 95% efficient gas furnace that emits mostly water vapor through a pvc pipe instead of a chimney. God, I love progress!!!