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Show President Signs Rep. King s Bill On Phosphate Mining The White House advised Rep. David S. King of Utah Tuesday that the President has signed into law his bill enabling phosphate phos-phate prospectors to obtain federal fed-eral leases on their discoveries without opening them to competitive com-petitive bidding. Congressman King hailed the new law, which was sponsored jointly by himself and Senator Frank E. Moss of Utah as "a victory for small business." Mr. King said the bill establishes estab-lishes two year prospecting permits per-mits to protect the prospectors' claims. "If, within that period, the prospectors can show the Secretary of the Interior there are no valuable phosphate deposits de-posits on their claims, they will be entitled to leases on any or all of the lands covered by the permits," he explained. "In the past leases have always al-ways been awarded through competitive com-petitive bidding, without regard for the person who made the original discovery. Often the hard working prospector who made the discovery was edged out of it in the bidding." V |