VOTE: NO
Died In Committee
SB 1530 Requires certain state agencies to consult with certain federal agencies to determine whether state and federal mining programs can be better coordinated.
Summary: This bill will further eliminate Oregon’s small-scale mining industry and negatively affect the economies of Oregon’s rural communities.
Fiscal Responsibility:
Increases burdens on state funds by requiring implementation and oversight by multiple state agencies.
Local Control:
Attempts to gain authority over Federal mining laws.
Free Markets
Attempts to regulate production by requiring burdensome permitting and fees in operations using equipment other than hand tools.Changes prospecting and casual mining to exploration and requires an additional permit. Requires any motorized activities to pay $400 additional permitting.Regulates off stream mining and surface mining, to forms of mining that are not currently not part of the moratorium. As regulations regarding small plants and rocks, IE. Rock can only be moved by one person, only using their hands. Removes under 50 cubit yard permit exemption for small operators.
Limited Government
Attempts to insert the state into matters of federal jurisdiction in several areas, from the amount of materials without a plan of operations or notice of intent to the simple ability to work a Federal mineral claim. Requires claim owners to prove they have a valuable deposit that can be economically mined, requiring validity tests conducted by BLM that costs Taxpayers about $20.000 per mining claim.
Personal Choice and Responsibility
Would require burdensome regulation and fees, provides opportunity in rulemaking to arbitrarily redefine lands and waters. Application requirements are subject to change by rule, and as written are intrusive to business strategy of operators. Attempts to allow the issuance of violations upon allegations.
SB1530 attempted to add “surface mining” to the law, which oversteps the intent of the moratorium. Does not lift moratorium in most places. Requires Indian tribes and NGO’s to give permit approval.
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Comments
For the record, when SB838 went through legislature, it was passed as a law that would stop motorized dredge mining, but after making the rounds in rulemaking, that is not where it ended. In the end, it ended up banning efficient suction devices – motorized or not – and increased the applicable area of the law. Most importantly, it asked applicants to voluntarily forfeit their 4th Amendment rights to the state. It is my impression that those things would have been deal-breakers for the few votes in which they needed to get the bill passed, so they left them to Rulemaking to insert them there.
With this history of the overstepping intent of the laws by Administrative Rule, I assume that there are unknown rules waiting in the wings – the deal-breaking proposals that would be deal-breakers on the legislative floors.
OR Sen Alan Bates’ happy donor strategy: 1) miner too loud 2) silence ALL miners 3) regulate and tax miners 5) no more mining. Donor wins.
When is enough, enough?! If the problem is a big donor of Bates’ and Kitzhaber’s who lives in Gold Hill not liking the sound of a small engine in the morning, why not just put regulations on operators who work in areas around homes? But they try to put us out of business instead? How does that even make sense? Why are we all being punished for one person’s bad manners? Funny, that doesn’t happen to some other demographic groups….
Why do they want to know my sercets, like the GPS location of my claim and how many ounces per ton I’m getting from my material? So they can rope it up into a new monument or wilderness? This is starting to smell like Harney County!