November 29th, 2005 - “There’s a great deal of concern and confusion about the mining provision and what the language may or may not do to public lands. I share the concern of the Wyoming sportsmen and miners who see this provision adversely affecting the multiple-use of our public lands. I won’t stand by and let a band-aid fix to the Mining Act become a chronic injury to land use in our state.
“If someone is using the land for hard rock mining they ought to be mining – not selling their land for development. Folks in Wyoming need access to public lands and multiple use should continue to be the baseline for our decision making,” Thomas said.
“There is a sound need to reform the mining law, but we shouldn’t put the rights of sportsmen, grazers and recreationists in harm’s way to provide tweaks to the 1872 law.”
