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Show requiring recordation. The General Mining Law 20 currently requires compliance with location and discovery requirements of state law. State laws on this subject vary widely and many are obsolete or archaic in light of modern technology. The discovery work required by state law often serves no useful purpose and frequently conflicts with sound land use practices and causes needless harm to the environment. The Constitution gives Congress21 the basic responsibility for determining the disposition of public lands, and we believe that the development of mineral resources is so important that Federal statutes should fully prescribe uniform methods by which rights in these resources may be acquired. Elimination of Long-Dormant Claims Congress should establish a fair notice procedure (a) to clear the public lands of long-dormant mining claims, and (b) to provide the holders of existing mining claims an option to perfect their claims under the revised location provisions we recommend. Under such a procedure, failure to file proper notice of preexisting claims with county and Federal agencies within a reasonable time would constitute conclusive evidence of abandonment. This would be somewhat analogous to state quiet-title actions and to the surface right proceedings authorized by the Surface Use Act of 1955.22 Clearing the record of an estimated 5.5 million long-dormant claims would assist in achieving more efficient land planning and management by Federal agencies. We also believe that bona fide mineral explorers would often benefit from the prediscovery protection afforded under the procedures we recommend, which is lacking under existing law. Conclusion The location-patent system we recommend will, in our opinion, correct the deficiencies and weaknesses of the existing Mining Law while, at the same time, continuing to provide incentive for the exploration, development, and production of valuable minerals.* 20 n. 1, supra. 21 Article IV, section 3, Constitution of the United States. 22 30 U.S.C. §§ 611-615 (1964). * Commissioners Clark, Goddard, Hoff, and Udall submit the following separate views: The Commission is unanimous in agreeing that existing mineral law should be modified. Many excellent changes are recommended in this report. However, it is our view that more fundamental changes are required. In particular, the dichotomous system that distinguishes "locatable" from "leaseable" minerals should not be continued. The recommended modifications preserve the location-patent approach devised more than 100 years ago. It served an earlier period but cannot, even as modified, provide an adequate legal framework for the future. Only minor sur- 130 The Mineral Leasing System A number of statutes provide for mineral leases applicable to certain minerals and to certain of the public lands. The principal leasing law is the Mineral Leasing Act of 1920 23 which applies to oil, gas, oil shale, phosphate, sulfur (in two states), potassium, sodium, native asphalt, and solid and semisolid bitumen and bituminous rock (such as tar sands), where found on public domain lands. The Acquired Lands Leasing Act of 194724 extended the 1920 Act authority to acquired lands. Various other authorities for leasing of locatable minerals on most acquired lands were centralized for administration in the Secretary of the Interior by the Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1946.25 Under the leasing system, a distinction is made between areas where workable deposits of minerals are known or judged to exist and areas where workable deposits are not judged to exist. Where minerals are known to exist in workable deposits, leasing is done on a competitive basis with interested parties bidding competitively for the right to develop minerals. For example, in the case of oil and gas, leases are awarded competitively in those limited instances when a geologic structure of a producing oil or gas field is known to exist. Other minerals are leased competitively when the area is judged to contain "workable" deposits. Noncompetitive leasing is used in all cases where competitive leasing does not apply. In the case of oil and gas, noncompetitive leases are awarded to the "first qualified applicant" who applies except in limited cases where substantial interest is involved. In the latter cases, all persons applying within a specified period are treated as having filed simultaneously and the lease is awarded by a public drawing. In the case of the other leasable minerals, prospecting permits are awarded to applicants solely on a "first come, first served" basis. These prospecting permits carry rights to lease the mineral once a discovery has been made. No bonus is paid for the prospecting permit, but an annual rental is charged 23 n. 3, supra. 24 30 U.S.C. §§351-359 (1964). 25 n. 19, supra. gery on the Law of 1872 is recommended in this report. In our view a general leasing system for all minerals except those which are made available by law for outright sale should be adopted. Such a system would: 1. Continue to encourage orderly and needed resource exploration and development. 2. Insure better management and protection of all public land values and enhance human and environmental values. 3. Establish a fair and workable relationship between economic incentives and the public interest. Objections to the location-patent system are numerous, obvious and, in large measure, admitted by industry and |
