Watch Heather and Steve

Keep a close watch on New Mexico Congressional Representatives Heather Wilson and Steve Pearce to see if they represent their taxpayer constituency of if they take care of their rich corporate contributors. Let me explain. I spent a good deal of my government career fighting something called the 1872 Mining Law. This was passed when Ulysses Grant was President. It is a law that virtually gave away taxpayer owned resources to mining companies on public lands. In 1872 it made some sense as a way to populate the frontier west and develop its hard rock minerals. In 2005 it is an atrocity.

President Clinton banned the practice of letting miners buy their mining claims for as little as $5 an acre. Yesterday, the House of Representatives Resource Committee in Washington overturned the ban and essentially propose giving away to American and foreign national mining companies valuable public lands. Look here to see who they are!

In the New Mexico that inventory comprises some 170,231 acres including 44 mining claims with in five miles of Carlsbad Caverns National Park.

If this proposal reaches the floor of the House and Pearce and Wilson vote for it they should held accountable to Americans whose pensions and health insurance are being cut in the bush drive to slash the budget. What a ripoff!