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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 17, 2000

INTERIOR DEPARTMENT BATTING 1.000 IN EFFORTS TO KILL MINING

Washington--The U.S. Department of Interior has issued yet another new "directive" that substantially changes the rules governing mining on public lands. This is one of several recent Interior Department actions intended to kill American mining exploration operations, the National Mining Association said today.

This most recent action involves interpretive decisions by Interior Solicitor John Leshy that threatens to halt a proposed gold mine within the California Desert Conservation Area. Glamis Gold Ltd., developer of the proposed Glamis Imperial Project, has filed suit against the Interior Department and Secretary of Interior Bruce Babbitt, challenging the new Interior directive.

At issue is Leshy's December 1999 revisionist opinion concluding that the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has the authority to deny a plan of operation for the Glamis project due to impacts on historic, cultural or religious values of the Quechan Tribe of Indians. This opinion applies a new standard to the Glamis project than that applied to other mine development projects within the California Desert Conservation Area or elsewhere.

NMA President and CEO Richard L. Lawson said the Interior Department again is attempting to change the regulation of mining on public lands through a legal maneuver rather than proper legislative or administrative means.

"What we are seeing here is part of a pattern of total disregard for established American mining laws and is yet another short-sighted effort by this Administration to remove lands from public use withoutCongressional input. This action follows an alarming series of public land withdrawals from mining and shows a disregard for the constitutional role of Congress in this process," Lawson said.

Last year alone, the Administration issued over 52 notices of land withdrawal totaling over 2.3 million acres, yet mining has touched less than one-quarter of 1 percent of all U.S. land.

Specifically, the newest Leshy opinion effectively ignores the Mining Law of 1872 and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 by granting the BLM a discretionary veto power over the development of unpatented mining claims on public lands. This conclusion is based on Leshy's interpretation of FLMPA resulting in two new standards being applied to mining: one creating a new definition of the "unnecessary and undue degradation" standard totally at odds with the definition found in the BLM's regulations governing mining, the 3809 regulations; the other that a new "undue impairment" standard must be applied to projects within the California Desert Conservation Area.

In February, NMA filed suit against the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP) challenging a May 1999 rulemaking NMA said amounted to a transformation of the group from one with only "advisory" duties to "one with substantive regulatory authority over other federal agencies and parties."

"As we have seen before with the Interior Department's millsite opinion, public land withdrawals, previous comments on rewriting the 3809 regulations, and the ACHP rulemaking, there is a conscious effort to rewrite existing law outside the current rulemaking and legislative process and to accomplish it before the end of this administration," Lawson stressed.

"The term 'public lands' means they belong to the American people. The peoples' representatives in Congress should decide how these lands are utilized, rather than a politically appointed lawyer. These continued actions, at best, ignore the statutorily mandated principle for multiple use and, at worst, pose an insidious threat to America's economic and national security interests" Lawson concluded.