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Show justification for acquisition or disposition of Federal public lands. Page 101. 36. Controls to assure that timber harvesting is conducted so as to minimize adverse impacts on the environment on and off the public lands must be imposed. Page 101. Chapter Six (Range Resources): 37. Public land forage policies should be flexible, designed to attain maximum economic efficiency in the production and use of forage from the public land, and to support regional economic growth. Page 106. 38. The grazing of domestic livestock on the public lands should be consistent with the productivity of those lands. Page 106. 39. Existing eligibility requirements should be retained for the allocation of grazing privileges up to recent levels of forage use. Increases in forage production above these levels should be allocated under new eligibility standards. Grazing permits for increased forage production above recent levels should be allocated by public auction among qualified applicants. Page 108. 40. Private grazing on public land should be pursuant to a permit that is issued for a fixed statutory term and spells out in detail the conditions and obligations of both the Federal Government and the permittee, including provisions for compensation for termination prior to the end of the term. Page 109. 41. Funds should be invested under statutory guidelines in deteriorated public grazing lands retained in Federal ownership to protect them against further deterioration and to rehabilitate them where possible. On all other retained grazing lands, investments to improve grazing should generally be controlled by economic guidelines promulgated under statutory requirements. Page 114. 42. Public lands, including those in national forests and land utilization projects, should be reviewed and those chiefly valuable for the grazing of domestic livestock identified. Some such public lands should, when important public values will not be lost, be offered for sale at market value with grazing permittees given a preference to buy them. Domestic livestock grazing should be declared as the dominant use on retained lands where appropriate. Page 115. 43. Control should be asserted over public access to and the use of retained public grazing lands for nongrazing uses in order to avoid unreasonable interference with authorized livestock use. Page 116. 44. Fair-market value, taking into consideration factors in each area of the lands involved, should be established by law as a basis for grazing fees. Page 117. 45. Policies applicable to the use of public lands for grazing purposes generally should be uniform for all classes of public lands. Page 118. Chapter Seven (Mineral Resources): 46. Congress should continue to exclude some classes of public lands from future mineral development. Page 123. 47. Existing Federal systems for exploration, development, and production of mineral resources on the public lands should be modified. Page 124. 48. Whether a prospector has done preliminary exploration work or not, he should, by giving written notice to the appropriate Federal land management agency, obtain an exclusive right to explore a claim of sufficient size to permit the use of advanced methods of exploration. As a means of assuring exploration, reasonable rentals should be charged for such claims, but actual expenditures for exploration and development work should be credited against the rentals. Upon receipt of the notice of location, a permit should be issued to the claimholder, including measures specifically authorized by statute necessary to maintain the quality of the environment, together with the type of rehabilitation that is required. When the claimholder is satisfied that he has discovered a commercially mineable deposit, he should obtain firm development and production rights by entering into a contract with the United States to satisfy specified work or investment requirements over a reasonable period of time. When a claimholder begins to produce and market minerals, he should have the right to obtain a patent only to the mineral deposit, along with the right to utilize surface for production. He should have the option of acquiring title or lease to surface upon payment of market value. Patent fees should be increased and equitable royalties should be paid to the United States on all minerals produced and marketed whether before or after patent. Page 126. 49. Competitive sale of exploration permits or leases should be held whenever competitive interest can reasonably be expected. Page 132. 50. Statutory provision should be made to permit hobby collecting of minerals on the unappropriated public domain and the Secretary of the Interior should be required to promulgate regulations in accordance with statutory guidelines applicable to these activities. Page 134. 51. Legislation should be enacted which would authorize legal actions by the Government to acquire outstanding claims or interests in public land oil shale subject to judicial determination of value. Page 134. 52. Some oil shale public lands should be made available now for experimental commercial development by private industry with the cooperation of the Federal Government in some aspects of the development. Page 135. 11 |