Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, May 17, 1994                   TAG: 9405170127
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

MINE FIRM WILL GET THE GOLD

Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt on Monday signed a series of documents transferring roughly 1,950 acres of federal land in Nevada to a Canadian company for $9,765. Then, with a look of disgust, Babbitt denounced the transaction as a giveaway and a rip-off.

So began a renewed Clinton administration push to overhaul a 19th-century mining law under which the Toronto-based American Barrick Resources Corp. Monday took possession of a small slice of scrubby high desert near Carlin, Nev., and the estimated $10 billion in gold beneath the sagebrush - for $5 an acre.

The transaction is permitted under the terms of the 1872 Mining Act, which still allows mining companies almost unlimited rights to extract gold and other hard-rock minerals from hundreds of millions of acres of federal land and to ``patent'' (or take title to) that land for a few dollars an acre while paying the U.S. Treasury no royalties. Companies that extract coal, oil and gas from federal lands pay royalties.

The administration had delayed issuing the patent to Barrick but was ordered by a federal judge to complete the sale.

Standing beneath a huge mock check for $10 billion made out to Barrick and signed by ``The American People,'' Babbitt called the land transfer involving Barrick's Goldstrike Mine ``the biggest gold heist since the days of Butch Cassidy.''

A spokesman for one wing of the mining industry called the administration's criticisms misplaced. Jack Gerard of the Mineral Resources Alliance said the industry ``has been waiting at the bargaining table and is prepared to support responsible reform this year.''

Barrick officials, citing the company's $1 billion investment in the Goldstrike Mine, have frequently argued that it is a gross distortion to charge the company with obtaining $10 billion in gold for less than $10,000.

Both the House and Senate have passed mining bills this session, and are expected to begin thrashing out their wide differences soon. Babbitt said the administration would insist on a thorough overhaul that would end the land patenting system, guarantee a ``reasonable return'' for taxpayers and impose tough environmental and reclamation standards for mines on federal land.