New rules for hunting meteorites Options

[Woody]

Looks like the Feds are stepping up and placing restrictions on collecting meteorites. I recognize the interest and benefit science might have but the way I interpret this means more regulations placed on our public lands and activities. This might be a bit of a rant on my part but I hate all these rules and regulations on our public lands. I am reminded about the last time I was in the California N.F. I wanted to spend a couple of days in the back country camping. I found out that I needed a permit in order to even have a campfire. Here is another extreme, I was in Germany a few years ago and got an annual fishing license. It cost about 100$. However, if you actually wanted to use it you had to go down to the county court house before the last business day, and pay an additional cost for each and every day you planned on fishing. It was about 10$ extra per day.

This kind of suggest the same thing, you can’t go out hunting meteorites unless you buy a permit.



http://www.foxnews.com/science/2012/10/15/...intcmp=features

[Gene Kooper]

I for one disagree with your statement in bold above.

I have my own copy of the 1789 Constitution and I'm pretty familiar with it. I do agree that there is no Constitutional right to prospect or mine. There are some other historical basis for believing that right is found in various statutes and common law but there is no such right spelled out in the Constitution.

Perhaps you too have a copy of the 1789 Constitution and could point out to us where it spells out anything about public land or the right to acquire or dispose of public land?

I'm not nitpicking here Gene. Even Thomas Jefferson the author of the first Land Ordinance and President at the time didn't believe the Louisiana Purchase (1803 - the first public land) was legal under the 1789 Constitution and proposed an amendment to the Constitution to allow the purchase.

Nothing in the Northwest Ordinance or the Land Ordinance Act of 1785 (both passed before the new Constitution was written) even pretends to allow the acquisition of public lands either - they don't even use the phrase. There was no such power in the original Constitution of 1777, the Confederation and Perpetual Union between the States, to allow public lands. I've never in all my years of study found pre existing law that would allow the purchase or disposal of public lands.

I'm not looking for a public land do over and I'm not suggesting that public lands are illegal but much like you I tend to be curious and a bit puzzled when I read that people believe something is in the Constitution that I just can't seem to find.

Clay Diggins,

Short answer: The Property Clause in Art. IV, § 3, Cl. 2 and subsequent SCOTUS decisions interpreting the meaning of the Property Clause (See Kleppe v. New Mexico, 426 U.S. 529 (U.S. 1976) for a unanimous SCOTUS interpretation of the Property Clause that supports my impression that Congress has authority under the Constitution to dispose of the Public Lands.

Held: As applied to this case, the Act is a constitutional exercise of congressional power under the Property Clause of the Constitution, which provides that

"Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States."

Art. IV, § 3, cl. 2. Pp. 426 U. S. 535-547.

(a) The Clause, in broad terms, empowers Congress to determine what are "needful" rules "respecting" the public lands, and there is no merit to appellees' narrow reading that the provision

Page 426 U. S. 530

grants Congress power only to dispose of, to make incidental rules regarding the use of, and to protect federal property. The Clause must be given an expansive reading, for "[t]he power over the public lands thus entrusted to Congress is without limitations," United States v. San Francisco, 310 U. S. 16, 310 U. S. 29, and Congress' complete authority over the public lands includes the power to regulate and protect the wildlife living there. Pp. 426 U. S. 536-541.

(b) In arguing that the Act encroaches upon state sovereignty and that Congress can obtain exclusive legislative jurisdiction over the public lands in a State only by state consent (absent which it may not act contrary to state law), appellees have confused Congress' derivative legislative power from a State pursuant to Art. I, § 8, cl. 17, with Congress' powers under the Property Clause. Federal legislation under that Clause necessarily, under the Supremacy Clause, overrides conflicting state laws. And here, though the Act does not establish exclusive federal jurisdiction over the public lands in New Mexico, it overrides the New Mexico Estray Law insofar as that statute attempts to regulate federally protected animals. Pp. 426 U. S. 541-546.

© The question of the Act's permissible reach under the Property Clause over private lands to protect wild free-roaming horses and burros that have strayed from public land need not be, and is not, decided in the context of this case. Pp. 426 U. S. 546-547.

406 F.Supp. 1237, reversed and remanded. MARSHALL, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.

Long answer: The mere fact that the term "Public Lands" cannot be found in a textual search of the U.S. Constitution is not necessarily meaningful. If you care to follow me out in the weeds, here's my take on Congressional authority under the U.S. Constitution to dispose of and/or manage the Public Lands.

Let's start back with the stalemate in ratifying the Articles of Confederation. Maryland held out until February 2, 1781 to ratify the Articles of Confederation. It became effective on March 1, 1781. Maryland held out until states like New York, Massachusetts, and esp. Virginia ceded their claims to the "western territory" to the Union (some may refer to these lands as Public Lands of the newly formed United States).

Now to the manner and disposal of these newly acquired lands. The Continental Congress in December 1783 instructed a committee headed by Thomas Jefferson to prepare a report on dispositions of the public lands and the formation of government to be formed in the territories. The bulk of the report was presented on March 1, 1784 and contained three recommendations. The first subdivided the states ceded territories into territories bounded north and south by two degrees latitude, commencing at N 31°. The east-west boundaries were the Mississippi River, the meridian of the lowest point of the rapids of the Ohio River, and the meridian of the mouth of the Great Kanhaway (Kanawha River, a tributary to the Ohio River).

The second recommendation was to create a rectangular method of dividing the land into hundreds, 10 geographic miles square. These hundreds were to be divided into blocks of one geographic mile (6086.4 ft.) square each and consisting of 1,000 reformed acres (850.4 acres). The third recommendation was regarding criteria on how to form the territorial governments. The committee's report was approved by Congress in April 1784.

Jefferson proposed this rectangular form of land division because of his interest in ridding the nation of its old colonial ways and replacing them with decimal systems, esp. with regard to our monetary and land systems. As we all know, this proposal was not adopted in large part because Jefferson went to France in March 1785 and was not present for the final passage of the Act. Another committee under the leadership of William Grayson abandoned Jefferson's decimal land system in favor of the one we know today. The Land Ordinance Act was passed on May 20, 1785. A minor change was enacted in 1786 regarding following true meridians and in 1787 the rectangular western territories proposed by Jefferson were changed so that the prospective western states would be no less than three and no more than five. What purpose, other than land disposal was served by surveying these pubic lands?

The Union held in trust, owned, administered (pick one) the public lands for over six and a half years before the U.S. Constitution was ratified. The Congress of the United States under the Constitution enacted the Ordinance of 1796, Act of May 10, 1800 and Act of February 11, 1805 to further refine the rectangular survey system. This system was unique in another way. The rectangular surveys were conducted prior to disposal. This helped to check the rampant land speculation that characterized the late 1780s and early 1790s. Our rectangular survey system has changed little since 1805 and serves as an example of the ingenuity and foresight of our forefathers to see the common man as a land owner.

Last Point: I too have read that Thomas Jefferson was skeptical that the United States government had authority under the Constitution to purchase land. That may be one of the reasons that the U.S. signed a treaty with France as part of the Louisiana Purchase. The Gadsden Purchase from Mexico (treaty signed on December 30, 1853) and the Alaska Purchase from the Russian Empire (treaty ratified by the U.S. Senate in 1867) were also acquired under the authority of treaties.