Mining Policy Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Traditionally, mining policy dealt with ownership of extractive resources, including all minerals, metals, water, sand and gravel, and carbon-based fuels. However, by the end of the twentieth century in most countries, it had acquired a much broader scope, covering not only the ownership of the resources but also the surface needs of the mine or well developer, the safety of workers, the disposal of waste material, the consequences of water and air contamination plus their prevention, and taxation or royalties.

There are two broad approaches to extractive resource ownership and their regulation. In much of the world, the state reserves for itself ownership of all subsurface resources, and the terms for allowing resource exploitation include a percentage of production and/or profits for the state. A different conception of the subsurface is found in some common law countries such as the United States, Canada, and Australia. In these countries, surface ownership includes most subsurface resources. Still, as most hard-rock metal mining in these three countries is done on public lands, national and subnational legislation controls access. With both approaches, there is some truth in the observation of Herbert Hoover, mining engineer and U.S. president (1929–1933), that people with political power can be identified in any society by locating who benefits from mineral wealth.

In the Spanish American republics, mining policy traditionally sought to produce revenue for the state, not promote economic growth. The discoverer of a mine could make a claim on the land of any owner, including use of the surface for mineral processing. If work on the mine were suspended for more than a brief period, anyone could take over the claim. Taxation averaged 20 percent of production, not profit. This meant that in a time of low prices, mine operators necessarily continued producing even if at a loss, or they risked losing everything. These early codes were designed for gold, silver, and copper—they did not cover oil and coal. With the rise of late-nineteenth-century industrial production, the old codes were replaced by so-called liberal codes that granted permanent claim to extractive resources through payment of an annual patent fee.

The “Spanish” codes were replaced in the newly acquired western territories of the United States soon after the United States–Mexico War (1848). Extensive mineral discoveries made on these now public lands initially were under governance at the mine district level. Eventually the federal General Mining Law of 1872 created uniform terms based on a variety of existing local laws. The 1872 law remains in force for metal mining and is among the last major statutory milestones from the period of U.S. expansion. The code enshrined the patent fee system and required no royalty payment. Reform of this law has been an ongoing matter in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

Mining is almost always a disruptive activity in terms of the land surface. Waste rock or material is normally disposed of on the surface. This has the potential for long-term groundwater contamination as minerals oxidize or weather. Often metals are found in combination with sulfur, and the traditional method for its removal involved burning. During the early Industrial Revolution, smoke and sulfurous fumes were accepted as a price of progress. Prior to the twentieth century, defoliation by sulfuric acid around copper smelters was the norm, and legal problems with neighbors were commonplace. Air pollution and water contamination in the processing of minerals is a matter of major dispute in modern times.

Until the last quarter of the twentieth century, regulations were weak on mine closings. Once minerals were gone, and thus the income stream was gone that might finance a closing with cleanup in mind, mines were abandoned. Any problem fell to the original surface owner. After the Love Canal disaster in New York state in the late 1970s, which was not mining related, the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), known as the Superfund program, was signed into law in 1980. This legislation has become the prime mining policy for the cleanup of old mines. Cultural heritage programs often clash with Superfund projects. In old mining districts, retaining the mine head frames, buildings, and mine openings can conflict with the effort to improve drainage by extensive grading of the land, usually mountainous, into new contours.

Bibliography:

Agricola, Georgius. De Re Metalica. 1556.Translated by Herbert Clark Hoover and Lou Henry Hoover. Reprint of 1912 English edition. Dover, Mass.: Dover Publications, 1986.
Leshy, John D. The Mining Law: A Study in Perpetual Motion. Washington, D.C.: Resources for the Future, 1986.
Mayer, Carl J., and George A. Riley. Public Domain, Private Dominion: A History of Public Mineral Policy in America. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1985.
Mikesell, Raymond, and John W.Whitney. The World Mining Industry: Investment Strategy and Public Policy. London, 1987.

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