ABSTRACT
Senator McDougall admonished Congress to avoid enmeshing the simplicity of the free-access policy in a web of detailed rules and limitations. Though his concern was not then shared by a majority of his colleagues, time has demonstrated its cogency. For more than a century miners, federal agencies, and courts have wandered about in a dense thicket of difficult and sometimes intractable problems when interpreting and applying the details of the Mining Law. Some of these details have never made much sense. Others once seemed sensible, but no longer serve any purpose in the face of dramatic change in the techniques of mineral exploration and development. Many have become serious obstacles both to mineral development and to sound management of other resources.
