About 107,000 acres of Utah oil-shale claims - which some fear could be sold off at bargain basement prices - are among Western lands scheduled to attract Congress' attention on Thursday.
The House plans to debate changes in an 1872 mining law which was passed when Ulysses Grant was president allowing claimholders to obtain full title to the land by paying just $2.50 an acre, and then possibly reselling it for a quick, huge profit.Critics, including the General Accounting Office - Congress' watchdog agency - say the old law essentially gives land speculators the gold mine while taxpayers get the shaft, and changes are needed to end exploitation.
The proposed changes, however, have split Democrats and Republicans - not to mention congressmen from Utah.
Spokesmen for Reps. Howard Nielson and Jim Hansen, both R-Utah, said they oppose the changes and will vote against them. But Rep. Wayne Owens, D-Utah, favors them.
The bill would allow claimholders who applied to "patent," or buy, their claims and met all procedural requirements before the bill was introduced Jan. 24 to still buy the land for $2.50 an acre. About 7,279 acres in Colorado would also fall under that category.
For those claims where patent applications were made but not all procedural requirements fully completed by Jan. 24, claimholders could obtain limited title to certain minerals by finishing applications and paying a $2,000-an-acre fee.
About 28,000 acres in Utah and 18,683 acres in Colorado fit that category.
For oil-shale claims where no patent applications were filed by Jan. 24, the changes would not allow claimholders to obtain any form of title. The bill would permit them either to convert their claims to leases or maintain them as claims without title.
That would affect 88,843 acres in Utah, 54,400 acres in Wyoming and 56,480 acres in Colorado.
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Lease law abuses
-Selling 82,000 acres of oil-shale lands in Utah and Colorado for $2.50 an acre, while some of the claim holders immediately resold the land for $2,000 an acre.
-In 1983, 160 acres near Keystone, Colo., were sold for $2.50 an acre and resold for $11,000 an acre as part of a residential development.
-A patent application for 1,280 acres near Lake Mead National Recreation Area in Nevada might be purchased from the government for $3,200, but real estate agents value it at between $25.6 million and $32 million because it is within three miles of nine gambling casinos in Laughlin, Nev.
-Sixty acres near the Breckenridge, Colo., ski area that could be patented for $201 even though no mining activity is evident has an estimated fair market value of $12 million.