Federal - Mining

摘要

In early 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that sand and gravel was not reserved under patents issued*under the Pittrriarr Underground Water Act of 1919, BedRoc Ltd., LLC v. United States, 541 U.S. 176 (2004). Less than a year later, the Interior Board of Land Appeals (IBLA) issued a decision, New West Materials, 164 IBLA 126(2004), GFS(MIN) 2(2005), reaching the opposite conclusion with respect to patents issued under the Small Tract Act, para. 1, ch, 270, 68 Stat, 239, 43 U.S.C. para. 682 (1970), repealed by Pub. L No 94-579, tit, VII, para. 702,90 Stat, 2789 (1976), Because the Small Tract Act only applied to isolated tracts of land of five acres or less, IBLA's decision in New West likely will have little direct impact on the mining industry; however, the decision does reflect the ongoing debate as to the more general question of whether Congress, in authorizing surface patents, intended to include sand and gravel in the reservation of the mineral estate The backdrop for the New West decision is both the BedRoc decision and the Supreme Court's earlier decision in Watt v, Western Nuclear, Inc., 462 US. 36 (1983), In Western Nuclear, the Court ruled that the United States did own sand and gravel under mineral reservations contained in patents issued pursuant to the Stock-Raising Homestead Act (SRHA). In BedRoc, the plurality decision distinguished Western Nuclear, concluding that the SRHA's reservation of "all the coal and other minerals" reflected a different intent than the Pittman Act's reservation of "all the coal and other valuable minerals." BedRoc, 541 U.S. at 181-83. The Court concluded that the term "valuable minerals" was unambiguous, and the only question was whether sand and gravel were deemed to be valuable minerals at the time the Act was enacted, Concluding that they were not, the court ruled that sand and gravel was not included in the mineral reservations made under the Pittman Act. Id. at 183-84.