[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 48 (Thursday, March 25, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2117-S2120]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Ms. MURKOWSKI:
  S. 3175. A bill to amend the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 
1993 to require the Bureau of Land Management to provide a claimant of 
a small miner waiver from claim maintenance fees with a period of 60 
days after written receipt of 1 or more defects is provided to the 
claimant by registered mail to cure the 1 or more defects or pay the 
claim maintenance fee, and for other purposes; to the Committee on 
Energy and Natural Resources.
  Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation 
in the Senate that has already been introduced in the House of 
Representatives by Alaska Congressman Don Young to clarify federal 
mining law and remedy a problem that has arisen with the extension 
process for ``small'' miner land claims.
  Under revisions to the Federal Mining Law of 1872, 30 U.S.C. 28(f), 
holders of unpatented mineral claims must pay a claim maintenance fee 
originally set at $100 per claim by a deadline, set by regulation, of 
September 1st each year. Since 2004 that fee has risen to $125 per 
claim. But Congress also has provided a claim maintenance fee waiver 
for ``small'' miners, those who hold 10 or fewer claims, that they do 
not have to submit the fee, but that they must file to renew their 
claims and submit an affidavit of annual labor by Dec. 31st each year, 
certifying that they had performed more than $100 of work on the claim 
in the preceding year, 30 U.S.C. 28f(d)(1). The waiver provision 
further states: ``If a small miner waiver application is determined to 
be defective for any reason, the claimant shall have a period of 60 
days after receipt of written notification of the defect or defects by 
the Bureau of Land Management to: cure such defect or defects or pay 
the $100 claim maintenance fee due for such a period.''
  Since the last revision to the law last decade, there have been a 
series of incidents where miners argued that they submitted their 
applications and affidavits of annual labor in a timely manner, but due 
to clerical error by BLM staff or for unexplained reasons the 
applications or documents were not recorded as having been received in 
a timely fashion--and that BLM has then moved to terminate the claims, 
deeming them null and void. While mining claim holders have argued that 
the law provides them time to cure claim defects, BLM has argued that 
the cure only applies when applications or fees have been received in a 
timely manner. Thus, there is no administrative remedy for miners who 
believe that clerical errors by BLM resulted in loss or the late 
recording of claim applications.
  There have been a number of cases where Congress has been asked to 
override BLM determinations and reinstate mining claims simply because 
of the disputes over whether the claims had been filed in a timely 
manner. Congress in 2003 reinstated such claims in a previous Alaska 
case, and claims in another incident were reinstated following a U.S. 
District Court case in the 10th Circuit in 2009 in the case of Miller 
v. United States.
  This bill is intended to short circuit continued litigation and pleas 
for claim reinstatement by clarifying the intent of Congress that 
miners do have to be informed that their claims are in jeopardy of 
being voided and given 60 days notice to cure defects, including giving 
them time to submit their applications and to submit affidavits of 
annual labor, should they not be received and processed by BLM 
officials. If all defects are not cured within 60 days--the obvious 
intent of Congress in passing the original act--then claims still will 
be subject to voidance.
  The transition rule included in this measure will solve two pending 
cases in Alaska, one where a holder of nine claims on the Kenai 
Peninsula, near Hope, Alaska, has lost title to claims that he had held 
from 1982 to 2004. In this case, John Trautner had a consistent record 
of having paid the annual labor assessment fee for the previous 22 
years and the local BLM office did have a time-date-stamped record that 
the maintenance fee waiver certification form had been filed weeks 
before the deadline, not just a record that the affidavit of annual 
labor had arrived. In the second case Don and Judy Mullikin of Homer, 
Alaska, is in the process of losing title to nine claims on the Seward 
Peninsula outside of Nome in Alaska because the Anchorage BLM office 
has no record of them receiving the paperwork, even though the owners 
have computer time stamps of them having completed the paperwork five 
months before the deadline, but no other evidence of filing to meet BLM 
regulations in support of an appeal. These are claims that have been 
worked in Alaska yearly since 1937 and are the main livelihood for the 
Mullikins.
  This legislation, supported by the Alaska Miners Association, clearly 
is intended to remedy a simple drafting error in congressional crafting 
of the small miner claim defect process. While only a few cases of 
potential clerical errors have occurred over the past decade, it still 
makes sense for Congress to clarify that claim holders

[[Page S2120]]

have a right to know that their applications have not been processed, 
in time for them to cure application-claim defects prior to being 
informed of the loss of the claim rights forever. Simple equity and due 
process requires no less.
  Given the minute cost of this administrative change to the Department 
of the Interior, but its big impact on affected small mineral claim 
holders, I hope this bill can be considered and approved promptly this 
year.
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