TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Twenty US legislators had this week introduced a Bill in the House of Representatives looking for reforms to the General Mining Act of 1872, proposing higher royalties for mining companies.

The Bill suggests that mining companies be charged a royalty of 8% on new mines and 4% on existing properties for mining on public land.

The Bill was introduced on Thursday by the US House of Representatives natural resources committee member Peter DeFazio and subcommittee on public lands and environmental regulation member Raul Grijalva.

For over 140 years, the federal government has allowed mining companies to extract hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of valuable publically owned minerals from public lands without paying American taxpayers a single dime.

The 1872 Mining Law was signed into law by President Ulysses Grant. Originally intended to spur the nation’s westward expansion, the nineteenth-century statute still governs the extraction of hard-rock minerals on over 350-million acres of public lands in the western US.

"Adding insult to injury, the current law has allowed these mining companies – many of them foreign owned – to carve up our lands and abandon the toxic, hazardous mess for taxpayers to clean up. My legislation will ensure the mining industry pays its fair share, meets modern environmental standards and addresses its legacy of contamination throughout the west,” DeFazio said.

The congressional representatives proposed to use the money raised through royalties to clean up abandoned hard-rock mine lands, which was estimated to cost about $72-billion.

A new report released by the committee’s Democrats estimated that the owners of 46 of the nation’s top-producing hard-rock mines would have paid $380-million in royalties in 2012 and 2013, had the DeFazio legislation been law.

The study held that the 46 mines produced minerals worth about $9.6-billion in the last two years from federally controlled land, without paying any royalties. Twenty-one of these mines are foreign owned.

GREEN APPLAUSE

The Bill was welcomed by several environment-focused lobby groups.

“This Bill will bring the nineteenth-century mining law into the twenty-first century and help the economy in the process. The 1872 Mining Law reform is a win-win for both jobs and the environment, and ensures that taxpayers start getting a fair deal instead of giving away our minerals for free,” Earthworks executive director Jennifer Krill said.

Mary Costello of the Rock Creek Alliance, a citizen’s group fighting to protect the Montana wilderness area from a proposed mine alleged to potentially generate water pollution “forever”, said there were some places that simply should not be mined.

“We need a mining law that lets us safeguard a major watershed that is absolutely vital to our local economy, while protecting the spectacular public lands that are a part of our nation’s wilderness system. This Bill does that,” Costello said.

Kalmiopsis Audubon Society member Ann Vileisis said she was grateful that congressman DeFazio was taking a leader in reforming the country’s out-dated mining laws.

"Many of us were outraged to learn how little public lands agencies can do to protect our clean water and salmon runs because the outmoded mining law makes mining the highest use for public lands. Now, it’s rigged to give mining companies a big advantage, but local communities will be left to deal with the pollution,” added Vileisis.

Kalmiopsis Audubon Society is working to protect the headwaters of National Wild, Scenic Rogue and Smith rivers from nickel strip mining.