[Congressional Bills 106th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 1722 Introduced in Senate (IS)]







106th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                S. 1722

  To amend the Mineral Leasing Act to increase the maximum acreage of 
Federal leases for sodium that may be held by an entity in any 1 State, 
                        and for other purposes.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                            October 13, 1999

 Mr. Thomas (for himself and Mr. Enzi) introduced the following bill; 
   which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Energy and 
                           Natural Resources

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
  To amend the Mineral Leasing Act to increase the maximum acreage of 
Federal leases for sodium that may be held by an entity in any 1 State, 
                        and for other purposes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. TITLE.

    This Act shall be entitled the ``Trona Market Competition Act of 
1999''.

SEC. 2. SODIUM MINING ON FEDERAL LAND.

    (a) Findings.--Congress finds that--
            (1) Federal land contains commercial deposits of trona, the 
        world's largest deposits of trona being located on Federal land 
        in southwestern Wyoming;
            (2) trona is mined on Federal land through Federal sodium 
        leases under the Act of February 25, 1920 (commonly known as 
        the ``Mineral Leasing Act'') (30 U.S.C. 181 et seq.);
            (3) the primary product of trona mining is soda ash (sodium 
        carbonate), a basic industrial chemical that is used for 
        glassmaking and a variety of consumer products, including 
        baking soda, detergents, and pharmaceuticals;
            (4) the Mineral Leasing Act sets for each leasable mineral 
        a limitation on the amount of acreage of Federal leases any 1 
        producer may hold in any 1 State or nationally;
            (5)(A) the present acreage limitation for Federal sodium 
        leases has been in place for over 5 decades, since 1948, and is 
        the oldest acreage limitation in the Mineral Leasing Act;
            (B) over that time, Congress or the Bureau of Land 
        Management has revised the acreage limits applicable to other 
        minerals to meet the needs of the respective industries; and
            (C) currently the sodium lease acreage limit of 15,360 
        acres per State is approximately \1/3\ of the per-State Federal 
        lease acreage limit for coal (46,080 acres) and potassium 
        (51,200 acres) and \1/16\ of the per-State Federal lease 
        acreage limit for oil and gas (246,080 acres);
            (6) 3 of the 4 trona producers in Wyoming are operating 
        mines on Federal leaseholds that contain total acreage close to 
        the sodium lease acreage ceiling;
            (7) the same reasons that Congress cited in enacting 
        increases per State lease acreage caps applicable in the case 
        of other minerals--the advent of modern mine technology, 
        changes in industry economics, greater global competition, and 
        the need to conserve Federal resources--apply to trona;
            (8) existing trona mines require additional lease acreage 
        to avoid premature closure, but those mines cannot relinquish 
        mined-out areas to lease new acreage because those areas 
        continue to be used for mine access, ventilation, and tailings 
        disposal and may provide future opportunities for secondary 
        recovery by solution mining;
            (9) to enable them to make long-term business decisions 
        affecting the type and amount of additional infrastructure 
        investments, trona producers need certainty that sufficient 
        acreage of leasable trona will be available for mining in the 
        future; and
            (10) to maintain the vitality of the domestic trona 
        industry and ensure the continued flow of valuable revenues to 
        the Federal and State governments and of products to the 
        American public from trona production on Federal land, the 
        Mineral Leasing Act should be amended to increase the acreage 
        imitation for Federal sodium leases.
    (b) Amendment.--Section 27(b)(2) of the Act of February 25, 1920 
(30 U.S.C. 184(b)(2)), is amended by striking ``fifteen thousand three 
hundred and sixty acres'' and inserting ``30,720 acres''.
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