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RCED-92-199R 1 (1992-06-16)

handle is hein.gao/gaobackbs0001 and id is 1 raw text is: United States General Accounting Office Washington, D.C. 20548 Resources, Community, and Economic Development Division B-229205 June 16, 1992 ~1111111 The Honorable Larry LaRocco 146879 House of Representatives Dear Mr. LaRocco: This letter responds to your February 5, 1992, request regarding our report Federal Land Management: The Mining Law of 1872 Needs Revision (GAO/RCED-89-72, Mar. 10, 1989). Our report discussed the mining law's patent provision, which allows claim holders who have located claims on federal land to obtain fee simple title to both the land and the minerals after meeting certain requirements and paying a nominal amount to the federal government. Claim location refers to the act of posting a location notice on a claim, marking the claim boundaries, and recording the claim where required. Our report stated that under the mining law's patent provision, lands were being removed from federal ownership without the government's receiving a fair return. The government's return is limited to the nominal patenting fee established in 1872, although land prices have escalated, primarily near expanding communities, resort areas, and tourist attractions. You noted that the claims for the sites discussed in our report may have been located before the land escalated in value, and you requested that we provide you with the dates that the claims were located. According to information provided by the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Land Management, the claims located for the 20 patent and 12 patent application sites discussed in our March 1989 report were located as early as 1893 and as recently as 1986. The specific dates that the claims were located are presented in enclosures 1 and 2, respectively. We did not independently verify these dates. Although we did not determine when the land covered by the claims escalated in value, the value of the land at the time it was claimed does not affect the concerns raised in our March 1989 report. Our basic concerns were that patenting GAO/RCED-92-199R, Location Dates for Mining Claims

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