Not only does the U.S. Treasury get nothing, Congress has granted miners a tax break worth an estimated $823 million.”  
	Modern mining corporations are subject to policies which were enacted nearly 135 years ago, at a time when the United States looked toward economic development to unite a nation that had been gripped by regional conflict and diverging economic interests which had lead to Civil War.  Despite attempts by the Federal government to adjust the 1872 laws to better suit the United States of today, debate over how best to change these policies rages.  Perhaps more unwilling than unable, mining policy remains little changed throughout a nearly 135 year period.
	Early attempts to regulate mining activities began in 1807, when congress passed an act enabling the leasing of lead deposits for mining, which was changed in 1846 to allow the sell of public land to private firms for mining development (Maley, 1979, p. 2).  Early controversy in mining policy took place after gold was discovered in the newly annexed California Territory in 1848, yet major reforms in mining policy were not undertaken until after the Civil War.  The General Mining Law of 1872, which remains as the major legislation regarding mining policy, was the final step in three major mining policy acts which were meant to both codify mining policy into the legal code and aid early mining corporations in development throughout the United States, including the West (Mayer, 1986, p. 624).  
	Maley (1979) explains that changes in 1872 were prompted by necessary additions to the legal code regarding mining claims, and that after the laws were enacted in 1872 they remained essentially intact and unchanged (p. 3).  The law was passed in the hopes it would spur economic development, especially in the West, by making mining economically viable and attractive.  Following the Civil War the United States looked toward economic development as a means by which to heal the wounds of the Civil War.  This economic climate helped create the 1872 law; at the time common opinion was that mineral exploration and mining were beneficial to the United States (Footer and VonLunen, 1999, p. 118). Through major policy changes both economic development and settlement moved into lands that remained unsettled in the American Midwest and West.  The 1872 law helped not only the American economy to expand into mining but also drew settlers into uninhabited areas of the American West.  Certainly this was the intent of Congress as it crafted and passed the Mining Law of 1872. 
	The chief aspect of the economic considerations of the policy can be noted through in the language of the act, which states: “all valuable mineral deposits in lands belonging to the United states [are] to be free and open to exploration and purchase” (Maley, 1979, p. 6).  Public lands were open to those who could find minerals to mine from public lands, and the General Mining Law of 1872 established a loose framework as a means to carry out this means of economic expansion. 
