Representative George Miller (D-CA) reintroduced March 4 his omnibus bill to end cut-rate sales and leasing of publicly-owned natural resources. The “Public Subsidies Deficit Reduction Act,” H.R. 919, would phase out taxpayer subsidies for resource extraction and require that the taxpayer receive a fair return when publicly-owned natural resources are sold or leased.

Eliminating the targeted subsidies would save taxpayers more than $5 billion over five years while improving environmental conditions on public lands. Miller’s bill would phase out resource subsidies over a five-year period, requiring any new contracts selling public resources to charge fair market value.

“These measures, worth billions toward reducing the federal deficit, will take an important first step toward eliminating corporate welfare in our natural resources subsidies,” said Miller. The bill targets a wide array of subsidies to natural resource developers that has taken billions of dollars from the taxpayers’ pockets.

These subsidies include royalty-free mining of hardrock minerals from public lands, the sale of national forest timber at a loss to the Treasury, heavily subsidized irrigation water for Western agribusiness, below-market prices for electricity to some parts of the nation, and sweetheart deals for concessionaires in national parks. In the past, Congress has addressed resource subsidy issues in a piecemeal fashion. Miller’s bill calls for Congress to attempt an overall reevaluation of these policies.

Demanding fair market value for U.S. natural resources would represent an historic change in the management of public lands. In the 104th Congress the measure was cosponsored by over 30 members of Congress and a variety of taxpayer and environmental groups, including Taxpayers for Common $ense, The Wilderness Society, Friends of the Earth and U.S. PIRG. Rep. Miller has a history of fighting unfair subsidies to natural resource industries.

In 1992 Miller succeeded in changing federal water policy in California with his legislation to charge more appropriate prices for irrigation water.