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Show Your Man ? In Washington j By U.S. Senator Orrin G. Hatch During a recent visit to Moab and Price, Senator Hatch met with citizens to discuss some of the problems prob-lems being faced by the mining min-ing industry in the State. "The purpose for coming to Moab and Price is to listen, find out the problem and what the solutions are,"theSena-tor are,"theSena-tor said. In Moab, Senator Hatch talked with members of the Western Land Users Association As-sociation and was briefed on some of the critical concerns con-cerns of that area of the state, in particular the ramifications ramifica-tions of the Bureau of Land Management Organic Act and the BLM surface mining reg- Following the land -users briefing, Senator Hatch acted act-ed as the moderator of an open town meeting at the Star Hall in Moab. The meeting meet-ing focused primarily on the BLM surface mining regulations, regula-tions, stockmen's use of grazing lands and use of off -road recreation vehicles. The 150 citizens present expressed very deep concern about the ever -increasing role the federal government plays in the lives and affairs af-fairs of Utahns in that part of the state, pointing out that 90 of the four -county area in southeast Utah is owned and managed by the federal government. In Price, Senator Hatch met with the Utah Coal Operators Op-erators Association. The coal mining industry cited examples of incoherent and insufficient federal management manage-ment and indicated that the federal leasing regulations were prohibitive and prevented pre-vented rather than promoted development. The Senator drove to the American Coal Mine and was escorted into the excavations with the miners. He worked work-ed with their equipment and observed their particular problems and concerns first hand. "It is clearly goingtotake a bi-partisan effort on the part of every Western Congressman, Con-gressman, Senator and Governor Gov-ernor to get reasonable laws and regulations enacted and administered on the federal lands," Senator Hatch concluded. ulations resulting from the Act. Local representatives of BLM and the National Prk Service were also in attendance. at-tendance. Senator Hatch questioned the constitutionality of the surface mining regulations, citing severalSupremeCourt cases which have stated that patented and unpatented mining min-ing regulations are unlawful under the Mining Act of 1872. He added, "Authority to issue is-sue these kinds of regulations reg-ulations was deleted from the final version of the BLM Organic Or-ganic Act. The action is of questionable constitutionality constitutional-ity and clearly violates the intent of Congress. The land users appealed to Senator Hatch to work for the repeal of the BLM Organic Or-ganic Act which was passed in the last minutes of the 94th Congress. The Senator told the land users he would take their recommendations into consideration and indicated he would particularly consider con-sider the introduction of legislation leg-islation aimed at the repeal of the surface mining regulations. |