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Legislation & Regulation

Update on MMAC & PLP

June 2015 by Scott Harn

The Minerals and Mining Advisory Council (MMAC) is still seeking administrator applicants for a few states. The overall goal is to get the traditional mining districts in working order so miners can obtain Coordination status to prevent federal agencies from disregarding our rights.

First, I want to correct the listing of states where the 1872 Mining Law applies. In “What’s All This Talk About Mining Districts?” (April 2015 issue) we originally listed the following states:

Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming.

However, we neglected to include two additional states with public lands: Virginia and West Virginia.

California has the most applicants so far with thirteen. Several states do not have sufficient applicants to hold a vote—a minimum of three is required. Click on the Mining Districts link at mmacusa.org and select the state where your mining claims are located to see the names and short biographies for those persons applying for an administrative position.

Administrative applications will still be accepted for states that have insufficient numbers. If you’re interested in getting in on the ground floor and can attend a meeting or two each month to get the ball rolling, please visit the “Forms, Laws, Jobs & Docs” link at mmacusa.org and click on the “Administrative Application” link.

Mining claim owners are encouraged to review the administrative applicants and vote.

Public Lands for the People is working on a Miner’s Bill of Rights with the support of several members of Congress. This Bill of Rights will be presented to the Bureau of Land Management to give them the opportunity to reach a Memorandum of Understanding with MMAC regarding reasonable regulations. If no MOU agreement can be reached with BLM, then the issue will be put through Congress. We will report more on this topic in our July 2015 issue.

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Our fundraising drive for Public Lands for The People continues. For those of you unfamiliar with PLP, they have been at the forefront in fighting for the rights of miners, battling to restore the rights of suction gold dredgers and other miners.

How it works: A one-year PLP individual membership is normally $35. You can get a one-year subscription to our monthly publication for $27.95 and include $25 for a PLP membership and we’ll contribute the additional $10 for your one-year PLP membership. If you already have a subscription you can certainly choose to add another year to your subscription to take advantage of this offer.

Here are the subscribers who have recently stepped up and taken advantage of this offer through April 13, 2015:

Earl Mattson—Boulder Creek, CA
John Hammer—Saint Joseph, MO
David Hall—Omak, WA
Barry Potter—Bakersfield, CA

Give us a call if you would like to add your name to this list!

by Scott Harn

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