« Inside the Bowl | Main | Blog! » Patenting landThis looks pretty critical: congress may allow the patenting of public land. This post to a diary at Daily Kos includes a scary bit of info from the LA Times: There are plenty of examples of how companies have used the 1872 mining law's patenting provisions to get their hands on public resources dirt cheap. In 1970, Frank Melluzzo "patented" -- bought -- public land near Phoenix for $150. Ten years later, he sold it for more than $400,000. Today, the Pointe Hilton Hotel in Phoenix sits on this mining claim. In 1983, Mark Hinton patented national forest land adjacent to the Keystone ski resort in Colorado. He later sold the parcel for more than 4,000 times what he paid for it. In 1994, American Barrick Corp. patented about 1,000 acres of public land in Nevada. That land contained more than $10 billion in gold reserves. But under the 1872 mining law, it paid only $5,000 for the land and paid not a dime in royalties to the federal Treasury.Congress banned the patenting and sale of public lands a decade ago, but a California Republican rep named Richard Pombo has attached what amounts to a "public land giveaway" to a House deficit reduction measure. More info here. jon posted this at 11:10 AM |
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