CONFERENCE ON REVISION OF UNITED STATES OCTOBER 17 AND 18, 1949 HOTEL DAVENPORT, The conference was called to order at 10 a. m., October 17, by the chairman, Daniel L. Goldy, regional director, Bureau of Land Management, northwest region, Portland, Ore. There was no reporter available to make a verbatim record at this point of the proceedings. In lieu of a record, an outline digest was prepared by K. S. Landstrom of the Bureau of Land Management, as follows: ADDRESS OF WELCOME Frank Marr, chairman, mining bureau, Spokane Chamber of Commerce: Mr. Marr stated that he represented Rowland King, president, Northwest Mining Association, who was unable to attend the opening session. A digest of Mr. Marr's remarks follows: A conference such as this is altogether fitting. The Spokane Chamber of Commerce, in view of the mining industry of the Spokane area, is very much interested in this problem and welcomes the conference to Spokane. A more general public discussion should be arranged in view of the importance of this question. PURPOSE AND SCOPE OF CONFERENCE Daniel L. Goldy, regional administrator, Bureau of Land Management, Portland, Ore.: A digest of Mr. Goldy's remarks follows: Origin of the meeting The purpose of the conference is not an attack upon the mining industry, but upon the problems arising from the mining laws as they affect the general public: The need for a meeting such as this in the Pacific Northwest became apparent from previous discussions between the Bureau of Land Management and mining groups. In these discussions the representatives of the mining industry suggested a conference of this kind in which the interests concerned could talk over common problems. A profitable 2-day discussion was held at Wallace, Idaho, in August 1949 with the Idaho Mining Association. Copies of the consensus of this meeting are now available for distribution from Harry Marsh, secretary of the Idaho Mining Association, or from the Bureau of Land Management. The Secretary of the Interior has appointed a Minerals Advisory Committee and a Conservation Committee to advise on this and other problems. 73 The problem Fundamental differences have arisen in the natural resources situation since the mineral patenting law was enacted in 1872. Tremendous demands are now being placed upon the land, forest, range, and mineral resources of the West. The Nation's resources are being rapidly depleted. The Government is considering and authorizing vast investment to conserve and rehabilitate the remaining public land resources. The increase in population in the Pacific Northwest, in excess of 35 percent since 1940, has greatly increased the pressure upon the recreation and wildlife resources. In the West no resource is more important than water. The mining laws must be viewed in today's setting, which is vastly different from the setting of 1872. In discussing this problem with us, the mining, lumbering, livestock, recreation, and wildlife interests have asked a number of perplexing questions. I should like to pass these questions on to you for your consideration. Questions raised by mining industry The mining industry asks: 1. Why can't we get patents to mining claims more readily and expeditiously? 2. Why do the Bureau of Land Management and the United States Forest Service contest so many mining claims? 3. Why are there so many withdrawals of public land from mineral development? 4. Why shouldn't a mining locator be allowed to patent claims adjacent to a claim on which there has been a valid discovery, where geological inference points to location of valuable minerals under such claims and the legal protection of such patents is needed to warrant their development? Questions raised by lumbering industry 1. Why is it possible for mining claimants to get timber which costs us up to $25 per 1,000 board feet at a cost of only $2.50 per acre? How can we compete with mining-claim owners on this basis? 2. Why should we have to buy rights-of-way from mining claimants in order to get access to Government timber purchased at public sale? 3. Why should we be subjected to nuisance suits or demands for payments for timber hauled over a mining claim, by individuals who are apparently out to mine the lumber industry instead of to mine. minerals? 4. Why should an individual be able to strip off the land, a very valuable timber resource, in order to mine a low-grade, low-value mineral? Questions raised by livestock industry 1. Why should it be possible for mining claimants to gain control of key water holes or key land areas and thereby disrupt established livestock operations? 2. Shouldn't we be protected against mining claimants grazing livestock on public lands permitted to us on the basis of our established grazing allotments? Questions raised by recreation and wildlife industry 1. Why should it be possible for individuals to use the mining laws to bottle up and monopolize recreational resources of major importance that ought to be preserved for public use? 2. Why should the extraction of certain minerals on public lands by dredging, stripping, or placering be permitted to destroy forever priceless agricultural or recreation values? Role of Bureau of Land Management The Bureau of Land Management at this conference has attempted to arrange so that varied interested groups can ask questions like the above and attempt to arrive at feasible and practicable solutions. The Bureau and the Department of the Interior firmly believe that a change in the law is needed to remove impediments to the exploration for and development of minerals. At the same time the laws should be revised as necessary to insure that control or use for mining will not prevent or destroy other valuable uses of our limited natural resources. The purpose of this conference is to explore for areas of agreement and disagreement on the subject of the mining laws. The immediate interest of the Bureau of Land Management in this and similar meetings elsewhere is to assist in formulating recommendations to be developed by the Director of the Bureau and the Secretary of the Interior. MINING LAW PROBLEMS FROM THE STANDPOINT OF THE LUMBERING INDUSTRY 1. Reginald Titus, executive vice president, American Forest Industries, Portland, Oreg.: Mr. Titus' prepared paper follows: Mining law problems of the lumber industry Mining laws and regulations are of concern not only to prospectors and miners but to all citizens who own a share in the public lands. Specifically these laws are of particular interest to foresters and lumbermen, livestock men, municipalities whose watersheds are in whole or in part on public lands, and the general public which enjoys the recreational value of these lands. I speak here today as a forester and as representative of the Western Forest Industries Association, an organization of independent loggers, sawmill operators, remanufacturers, and wholesale distributors of forest products in several of the Western States. Most of these operators have insufficient timber holdings of their own to maintain their operations and must buy logs or timber from private or public sources. In the 11 Western States about 62 percent of the forest area is owned by the Federal Government. Private timber is being steadily consolidated in the hands of fewer owners. Also private timber, being usually the more accessible, is being harvested at a faster rate than is public timber. The result is that independent operators are looking to Federal forest lands for more and more of their raw materials. Because of the importance to the lumber industry of reasonable mining laws our association at its 1949 annual meeting in Corvallis, Oreg., adopted the following resolution : Resolved, That Western Forest Industries Association recommend to the Congress of the United States revision of the general mining laws so as (a) to provide separation of surface and subsurface resources, (b) to require recordation of 63829-50-ser. 24- -6 mining claims, including accurate description of location, with the proper office of the Federal Government, (c) to discourage and prevent filing of mining claims for the purpose of acquiring public timber. These lumbermen are concerned primarily that mining claims not be used to prevent their access to timber, that mining claims not be used as a means of taking timber from Federal lands and that mining claims not be the cause of damage suits against operators who have purchased and are removing Federal timber. In these remarks and in our entire discussion of needed changes in the general mining laws it should be borne in mind that we are not critical of the legitimate miner but seek better regulation of those who locate mining claims for other purposes, and our information is to the effect that probably a majority of claims are filed for purposes other than development of mineral resources. Under the present laws mining claims may prevent access to Federal timber in at least two ways. First, location of a number of mining claims in forested areas may result in decision on the part of Federal officials to withdraw from sale large areas of timber because of the difficulty of securing agreement of the locators to permit logging operations. For example, harvesting of a considerable amount of mature timber in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest in Washington State has been held up because of the large number of claims filed on that land. Second, many people locate claims at strategic locations for the purpose of exacting payment from loggers, States or others who require rights-of-way over the land for the purpose of hauling logs. Although harvesting of the timber would in no way interfere with development of the mineral resources in these lands such tactics seriously interfere with removal of the timber crop and are extremely irritating to the lumber industry and to the public which believes in multiple use of these forest lands. There is plenty of evidence that a great many claims are filed on forest lands for the purpose of acquiring timber. Naturally this practice is bitterly opposed by the lumber industry whose members must pay a good price for timber which those who file mining claims secure without cost. Frequently the owner of these claims offer to sell to sawmill operators timber which they have thus acquired without expense. A report prepared in 1944 by William H. Friedhoff, mining engineer in the employ of the Forest Service in California contains much information concerning the filing of claims in that State for the purpose of obtaining control of timber resources, and for recreational purposes. Although the most productive mineral areas in California are outside the national forests and although less than 10 percent of the production of gold within the State comes from these forest lands, thousands of acres are filed on annually. For example, in 1937, according to the Friedhoff report, 535,000 acres of national forest land were included in live locations of which about 20 percent had been located that year. In a number of court cases involving claims it has been shown that the primary object of those filing was the acquisition of public timber. In 1907, for instance, the Circuit Court of Appeals of the Ninth Circuit affirmed a decision of the district court holding that certain placer claims were located for the purpose of obtaining the timber, which the locator cut and sold, and awarded damages to the United States. Another case decided in 1933 involved a number of placer claims in the |