Two different things


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Posted by Sherman in Idaho [72.47.9.37] on Friday, October 26, 2012 at 00:09:47 :

In Reply to: Beg to differ. posted by Chris Case [75.36.39.118] on Thursday, October 25, 2012 at 23:48:38 :

If you discover minerals on public land (DNR or USFS) that has NOT been "withheld from mineral location", you can file a mining claim under the 1872 mining act and gain an exclusive right to mine (not a title) the minerals. That's probably what you're thinking of. The catch with that is that nowadays you have to file an operating plan with the BLM or USFS in order to actually do anything, and they will generally not approve very much (e.g. no use of motorized equipment, no cutting of trees, etc) unless you're a big company that is planning a big operation and can spend a decade or so doing all the required studies and getting permits from every agency known to man. Oil and gas are handled differently than metallic ores, though, and are leased rather than claimed. At one time, it was possible to patent a mining claim (get title to it) by paying $2.50 per acre to the federal government, but although the provision is still on the books, congress has had a moratorium on patenting mining claims for decades now. Once in a while some big mining company manages to push through a special exception by buying a few senators, but the little guy has no chance of it. They won't even let a small-time operator build a shack or park a trailer permanently on his claim, much less actually start mining in any meaningful way. In some places, they'll let you poke around with a pick and shovel and maybe a sluice if you comply with a zillion state and federal water laws, but that's it.

On private property, however, the original land patent from the federal government automatically included surface, mineral, and timber rights, including oil and gas. Usually the land was first patented under something like the Homestead Act, the Donation Land Claim act, or the Timber and Stone Act. Sometimes title was granted as part of a railroad land grant or in the Southwest it might have been part of an old Spanish land grant that was honored by the US when it took over the Spanish southwest. No matter how the original land patent came into being, it started out including mineral rights. Over the years, some owner may have sold the mineral rights separately ("severed" them) and now, maybe 100 years later, here comes the coal company to mine the coal out from under somebody's farm, or stick an oil well in their back yard. That tends to be an unpleasant surprise, but it only happens if some previous owner of the land severed the mineral rights. Most of the farmers in North Dakota never did that, and so they own the oil that is under their land.

I guarantee you that if you come onto my land and claim that you've discovered valuable minerals under it which you now own, I will tell you to go away because you have no right to anything. And as far as royalties paid to the government goes, that only applies on government land. There may be a state severance tax for pumping oil (or cutting timber) on private land, even your own land, but that's a different thing. That's basically something states do rather than assess property tax on unmined minerals, unpumped oil, or standing timber.



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