Interior lawyer defends mining restriction opinion

RENO, Nev. - An Interior Department lawyer who angered the mining industry with a ruling on millsite restrictions two years ago says the absence of industry court challenges shows his interpretation of the 1872 law was right.

"It's been two years and two days since that opinion and it's never been challenged in court," said John Leshy, the Interior Department's solicitor general.

"That's kind of amazing to me because at the Interior Department we get sued all the time about everything. We have 2,000 active lawsuits at any given time," he said Tuesday in a speech at the University of Nevada, Reno.

"So, I think that means we're right. Obviously, some people in the mining industry disagree," he said.

Leshy's ruling in October 1997 limits the area mining operators can use in the future on federal land for support operations such as milling and waste disposal. It says the Mining Law of 1872 limits those operations to five acres per 20-acre mining claim.

Many mining operations in the West have much larger waste sites and those mines already in existence would not be affected by his ruling, Leshy said.

He said that mining operators have ways outside the mining law to secure larger tracts of land for millsites, such as engaging in land swaps or securing the necessary permits from the Bureau of Land Management.

Nevertheless, his opinion has drawn the wrath of the mining industry and its political allies. It remains a point of contention in an Interior Department spending bill back before Congress after a veto from President Clinton earlier this year.

"The solicitor's policy change, initiated behind closed doors with no public or Congressional debate, would effectively overturn 127 years of law," said Republican Rep. Jim Gibbons, whose home state of Nevada ranks third in the world in gold production behind South Africa and Australia.

Gibbons warned that full implementation of Leshy's ruling would eliminate 2.5 million jobs in the West and shut down 80 percent of mine production on Forest Service land and 90 percent of mine production on BLM land.

"When regulators take it upon themselves to legislate without congressional review, the American people lose control over their government and the laws that govern them," he said recently.

Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, and other opponents of Leshy's interpretation are trying to insert language in the spending bill to allow mining companies to ignore it.

Leshy said in an interview before his speech Tuesday night that Gibbons' projection of job losses was "pretty ridiculous.

"I don't know if there are 2 million mining jobs directly or indirectly in the world," he said. "And we are not applying that opinion to existing operations. Nothing has been shut down."

Leshy said he was on his way back to Washington early today to resume negotiations on the proposals.

"This is the silly season of the appropriations process. ... I call it governing by guerilla warfare," Leshy told about 100 students and professors on the UNR campus.

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