Interior secretary: Mining reform a top priority

The Obama administration will make overhauling the nation's 137-year-old hardrock mining law a top priority despite a full plate of higher profile issues, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Tuesday. Salazar told a Senate committee considering such legislation that "it is time to ensure a fair return to the public for mining activities that occur on public lands and to address the cleanup of abandoned mines." Reform bills have been introduced in the House and Senate, but past attempts at reform have foundered in the face of opposition from industry and many Western lawmakers. However, a new crop of conservation-minded lawmakers from the West and a new administration sympathetic to reforming the law have generated renewed interest in an overhaul...AP