Role of Hillary Clinton’s brother in Haiti gold mine raises eyebrows MORNE BOSSA, Haiti — Drive down the rutted dirt road a couple of miles to the guardhouse, then hike 15 minutes up to the overgrown hilltop, and there it is: a piece of 3 1/2 -inch-wide PVC pipe sticking out of the ground.
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The figure does not represent the actual value of the property or even the potential royalties from the mine but rather the hypothetical price the gold buried there might someday fetch. But it was such a nice big, round number that the Administration seized on it to symbolize the outrage that Mr. Babbitt and Leon E. Panetta, the budget director, said they felt.
Aside from the immense potential wealth involved, with gold selling at $380 an ounce, the transaction completed today was not unusual.
Prompted by the fear of changes in the law, hundreds of mining companies have filed applications under the existing law to obtain title to their proven claims for no more than $5 an acre.
The Mining Act of 1872, signed by President Ulysses S. Grant, was meant to provide an incentive for the settlement of the West.
It has not been substantially changed since then. So while the states and private landowners routinely charge royalties for mining on their property, the Federal Government does not charge for hard-rock minerals like gold, silver, copper, platinum and uranium. In contrast, coal, oil and gas companies must pay royalties to mine or drill on Federal land.
Barrick's Goldstrike Mine in northeastern Nevada is a straightforward example of how the law operates, but Administration officials had delayed as long as possible in handing over the title, known under the law as a 'patent.'
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Any company, or for that matter any individual prospector, can stake a claim on Federal land and mine metals there virtually free of charge. And if they like, the claimholders can patent the land, buying it outright from the Government for no more than $5 an acre. Gold in a Chemical Form
An American subsidiary of the Canadian-based company bought the claims from their previous owner for $62 million in 1987. The price was relatively low because the gold was not in pure veins but in a chemical form that made it hard to extract. The company invested heavily in new technologies to recover the precious metal, and production at the mine has expanded, reaching 1.4 million ounces last year.
The company applied for its patents in spring 1992. The Bush Administration's policy was to move swiftly to approve this kind of application, but the Clinton Administration reversed course and pledged to seek changes in the law. Barrick won a court order this spring forcing the Clinton Administration to follow the existing law.
'They are ripping off the American public fair and square, but it is a ripoff,' Mr. Babbitt said today.
'There is a lot of highly charged rhetoric that has entered into this political discussion,' responded Vince Borg, a spokesman for Barrick. 'But we took the risk, we invested over a billion bucks, we created over 1,500 new jobs.' Subsidiary Pays Taxes
Although the parent corporation is based in Toronto, an American subsidiary owns the mine, and pays Federal, state and local taxes. United States citizens and companies own close to half the parent company's shares, according to the company.
Last fall, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would end the patent sales and charge mining companies royalties for metals they mine on public lands. But the Senate passed a different bill, and the negotiations to reach a compromise between the two versions have not yet begun in conference committee.
Meanwhile, the United States District Court in Nevada ruled this spring that the delay was not legal, and today Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt signed the patent at the news conference, in which he urged Congress to move swiftly to head off a land rush by companies eager to get title to Federal lands before Congress imposes royalties.
Mr. Babbitt said he was optimistic that Congress would act soon. Senator Bennett Johnston, a Louisiana Democrat who will lead the Senate's negotiators, recently circulated proposals for a compromise bill that Mr. Babbitt said opened the possibility for negotiating 'genuine reform.'