In a nutshell.....Gone Mining!!!
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The point of clarification regarding zoning/ordinances/rules is that patented land (or land with an equiviliant level of title, ie. the unpatented mineral deposit) is not subject to the same stipulations or limitations as land with a Color of Title. (ie. a Warranty Deed).
For example, if you have a warranty deed, a city government (or the county, or the state, or the feds, or even an NGO) can come to you and say "We don't like what you are doing over here. You're building a chicken coop in the backyard. You didn't ask permission to build that thing and so we're going to fine you for that. Also, now you must get a building permit and if you don't we are going to fine you some more. Also, we have an ordinance that says you can't have any chickens without a permit, so we are going to fine you for being out of compliance and you need to get a permit. And we'll be back every month to inspect those chickens. And if you don't let us in to inspect, we're going to bring our law enforcement out here and then you'll be sorry. And oh, by the way, if you don't pay these fines, we're going to put a lien on your property and auction it off on our front step." And even if you go as far as to fight them in court, you are GOING to lose, because as Hal Anthony would put it, your estate is within their layer of the cake of jurisdiction. This happens every day in the United States and elsewhere. But the patent holder is not subject to these "rules". His property has a higher title and he is the absolute ruler of his land. If he wants to build a chicken house, he does so and if someone comes along and says "You can't do that", he regards them as what they are: a hostile trespasser who is trying to deny him of his property rights and he ejects them from his property. Like the man with the warranty deed, they may try to take his property and he too may wind up in court, but this will not be successful provided that the court is within the law.
As a Mineral Estate Grantee, you are no different from the patented land
holder described above in that the title of your property (claim) is considered to be equal to a patent, even though the paramount title is held in trust until formally patented. In this sense, you have the same rights as the patent holder, PROVIDED that you are within the provisions of the Grant. As such, you have the EXCLUSIVE right of possession and enjoyment within the surface of your boundaries, including the use of the water, timber, stone and other resources to further your mineral activities. Provided that you stay on the black and white line of the Mining Law, NOBODY has the authority to come along and challenge your activity unless you are somehow damaging their property. (And in that regard, even if you buried the land owner downstream of you in ten feet of tailings and washed his house into the river because you built a dam on the creek and it suddenly burst, his only challenge to you can be in civil court). This grant, that originated in the Act of 1866, as amended in 1872, carries with it not only the right to go out upon the public lands to search for unpappropriated minerals, but the right to lay claim to them, to develop them, to occupy the claim, to utilize the surface and waters to develop the minerals, but also the right to secure paramount title to the claim. Provided that you comply with the terms of the grant, there is no lawful authority for ANYONE to come along and attempt to interfere with your legitimate mining related activities. Not BLM, not USFS, not the State, not the county, not the city officials, not the "water police" and also not the pesky neighbor. Anyone who does come along and interfere with your granted right without having the lawful authority to do so is a trespasser any attempts to infringe or impair your granted rights is considered not only a takings, but a crime.
At this stage, based on your comments, I would say that you are still under the assumption that some type of authority does extend to your activities while on your claim. As well, you seem to assume that the Layer Cake was really about who has jurisdiction. If that is what you gleaned from Hal's "Layer Cake" discussion, then you misunderstood the point he was making. I know Hal very well, consider him not only a mentor, but also a good friend, so feel that he would agree that you may have somewhat misunderstood what the Layer Cake was about. The basics of that presentation was to illustrate that there are different layers of land out there. The two layers that he most wanted to differentiate between was Public Land and Public Domain. (I believe that what really spurred Hal on to discuss how and why they differ probably has much to do with some comments in the media over the recent Tracy case and especially the statements by Prosecutor Fong to the jury at the trial that the place where Cliff was working was "THEIR land". Hal and I had a couple of conversations about those public statements, both agreeing that they were not only irresponsible, but also very dangerous, because they would encourage Joe Q. Public to trespass on people's claims).
Public Land is a term that we all know, but that very few people actually understand. While many people desribe it as "the public's land" or "everyone's land", it is not this way at all. Lawfully, what Public Land is, is land that is held in trust by the United States Government for disposal to the people in the hope that they will put it to good use that will create a benefit for all. As such, Congress passed a number of pieces of legislation which would dispose of these lands. These included, but were certainly not limited to the Homestead Act, the several Mining Acts, the Desert Reclamation Act, the Grazing Acts and others, all of which conveyed a right to the people to go out on the public lands and to lay claim to them for varying purposes, as outlined and in accordance to the Acts. In a few instances, Congress even passed a few acts that granted specific individuals with the right lay claim to public lands for a specific project that would be of a particular benefit to the country at large. The Suttro Tunnel Act, which specifically granted to a mining engineer named Suttro the right to drive a tunnel for mine drainage and venilation on the Comstock Lode is probably the best example of an act passed to grant a property right to one individual that would ultimately impact the country at large. Railroad grants also come to mind in this regard.
Once a claim or right is established upon the Public Land by a person (typically called a "settler", which we miners very much are), the land in question ceases to be Public Land and becomes Public Domain. Public Domain can best be defined as land which is currently claimed or under occupation under the varying land laws, but in which the paramount title is still held in trust by the government. Even today, mining claims are not the only lands which are part of the Public Domain, as Grazing Lands, as well as lands claimed under the Desert Reclamation Act are also considered to be on Public Domain. In the case of the mining law, the claims are so far removed to the Public Domain, that when the National Forests were first set up, mining claims were to be regarded as a segregated estate from the Forest System and were to be "removed" from the sytem. Lawfully, this is still true today, but it's one of those issues we have with USFS acting outside its authority.
In all of the above cases, it is the position of the law that each claimant's entry is to be assumed to have been made in good faith and there was no provision for the government to come in and interfere with the claimant on the grounds that his entry might be illegitimate. Despite this, a "safety mechanism" was installed in each law to protect the grantor (and therefore other grantees) from those persons who filed claims with the intention to obtain free land for some purpose other than prescribed by law. In the case of the Desert Reclamation and Homestead Acts, the settler had to "prove up" on his claim within a period of five years in order to obtain the patent. Originally, the mining law had no such safety provision and this was the primary reason why the Acts of 1866 and 1870 were amended in 1872, which provided not only a method to validate the existence of a valuable mineral discovery, but also a method to determine whether lands were better suited for mining or for agricultural.
However, there is also another layer to the cake, in that these varying acts granted differing estates of the Public Lands. For example, the Grazing Acts, the Desert Reclamation Act and also the Homestead Act only granted the surface estate of the land as their intention was to utilize the surface for some beneficial use - in all cases for food production (farming or ranching). The Suttro Tunnel Act, as another example, only granted the subsurface, as tunneling through the subsurface to create drainage, venilation and transport between the varying existing mines on the Comstock was the intention. Suttro received no mineral rights. The mining acts however, were different in that Congress recognized that merely granting the minerals was not enough on its own. Without the use of the surface and the waters, these minerals could not be properly developed and extracted, so the Mining Acts granted not only the minerals (the subsurface), but also the surface, including the resources that would benefit the miner's work.
One thing you might notice here is that the Homesteaders, Desert claimers and Grazing owners were not usually granted the subsurface which would contain the minerals. Ideally, the system was to designed so that mineral lands would never be claimed for agricultural use or vice verse, but as you can appreciate, it really does not work that way. Sometimes very good agrcultural lands located in river bottoms also contain very valuable placer deposits. In this case, even though a farmer may own the land, he does not necessarily own the minerals. (Most people don't understand this). This is yet another layer of that layer cake. Even today, there are still specific provisions for filing a claim on land that is other than Public Land, be it upon the Public Domain of a grazing claim or even upon private property. In some cases, a claim can be filed
on grazing lands, while in others, the minerals may possibly be reseeved to the United States and only be available by sale or lease.
In all cases, an absolute property right is conveyed that others may not interfere with (no, not even the government, provided that the grantee stays on the bright line of the requirements of the grant).
Note that even though you drew the conclusion that Hal was mostly talking jurisdiction of law, thus far, I have not mentioned much of anything regarding jurisdiction. The fact is, even though Hal did certainly talk about varying jurisdictions, this was not really what the layer cake was about, apart from one simple point:
The management agencies - BLM and USFS - are managers of Public Lands and that is where their authority largely ends. USFS, as one example, has ZERO authority regarding the mining law, while BLM's authority is limited to overseeing the orderly disposal of the Public Lands. Neither of these two agencies have authority on the Public Domain.
Another thing that is not quite correct is your list of law.
For example, the United States Constitution is the SUPREME law of the land in this country. If you're religious, you might possibly refer to this as "God's Law", as it was the intention of its authors that the document provide protection to rights which they believe originate from a higher power. But even if you're not religious, the way to see it is that the founder's recognized the contents of that document as rights that all are born with. The purpose of this document was to draw a line in the sand, over which they believed government had no right to cross (ie. the rights SHALL NOT (a powerful term) be infringed).
Congressional Law is simply federal law, as Congress is responsible for the creation of all federal law. The Mining Law (Acts of 1866, 1870, 1872) is part of this body of law. Federal Law is subserviant to the Constitution.
I assume that by "Miner's Law", what you really mean are the customs, rules and regulations of the miners within the varying mining districts.
There is no such thing as Sec. of the Interior's Law, although the Department of the Interior does have administrative guidelines that help to govern its organization. Neither do BLM or USFS have "law". Again, these are administrative policies ONLY. Often they can talk miners into believing that their policies apply to them.
State Law. While State's have laws, as well as constitutions, their actual authority in our activity is incredibly limited. This is specifically identified in Section 3 of the Act of 1872, which states that the states may make rules and regulations governing the possessory title to claims. That is to say that the states may adopt particular laws related to claim filing, but ... these laws must be subject to federal law. (ie. they may not violate the Mining Law, which incidentily also reconizes the authority of the miners to make laws). Beyond that, the states have no authority, but like BLM and USFS they sometimes dupe miners into believing they have a lot of authority. In truth, the Mining Districts have greater authority than the states, having not only the same authority as the states to create laws governing the possessory title (sec. 3 of 1872), but also having an authority that is somewhat equal to that of the United States that the states do NOT have (see Sec. 1 of 1872).
The county's really do not come into this at all apart from having taken over some recording duties. Obviously, the County Sheriff is important because he is the supreme law enforcement officer inside the county, while your commissioners often have a communication line with other branches of government. Having county leadership that is pro-mining is a blessing, but having county leadership that is anti-mining is a bane.
All of this said, if you are looking for a genuine layer cake of lawful authority, the proper list would look like this:
U.S. Constitution
Congress (the Grantor)
The Miners (the Grantees)
Lawfully, the states and BLM are bit off to the side, as their roles are limited to assisting with orderly disposal ONLY. Neither is vested with any authority to actually regulate the ativities of miners, though they do have SOME authority regarding claim filing. Both however, often operate under a Color of Authority.
One of the biggest issues that arises is that there is a popular assumption that some Acts of Congress, particularly the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act effect the Mining Law, since like the Mining Law, they too are Acts of Congress. This would be so were it not for the fact that the U.S. Constitution protects property rights from being infringed. Basically, a law that infringes an existing right is not considered to be lawful.
_________________
"The early miner has never been truly painted. His services were at command to settle differences peacefully, or with pistol in hand to right a grievous wrong to a stranger. His capacity for self-government never has been surpassed."
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The point of clarification regarding zoning/ordinances/rules is that patented land (or land with an equiviliant level of title, ie. the unpatented mineral deposit) is not subject to the same stipulations or limitations as land with a Color of Title. (ie. a Warranty Deed).
For example, if you have a warranty deed, a city government (or the county, or the state, or the feds, or even an NGO) can come to you and say "We don't like what you are doing over here. You're building a chicken coop in the backyard. You didn't ask permission to build that thing and so we're going to fine you for that. Also, now you must get a building permit and if you don't we are going to fine you some more. Also, we have an ordinance that says you can't have any chickens without a permit, so we are going to fine you for being out of compliance and you need to get a permit. And we'll be back every month to inspect those chickens. And if you don't let us in to inspect, we're going to bring our law enforcement out here and then you'll be sorry. And oh, by the way, if you don't pay these fines, we're going to put a lien on your property and auction it off on our front step." And even if you go as far as to fight them in court, you are GOING to lose, because as Hal Anthony would put it, your estate is within their layer of the cake of jurisdiction. This happens every day in the United States and elsewhere. But the patent holder is not subject to these "rules". His property has a higher title and he is the absolute ruler of his land. If he wants to build a chicken house, he does so and if someone comes along and says "You can't do that", he regards them as what they are: a hostile trespasser who is trying to deny him of his property rights and he ejects them from his property. Like the man with the warranty deed, they may try to take his property and he too may wind up in court, but this will not be successful provided that the court is within the law.
As a Mineral Estate Grantee, you are no different from the patented land
holder described above in that the title of your property (claim) is considered to be equal to a patent, even though the paramount title is held in trust until formally patented. In this sense, you have the same rights as the patent holder, PROVIDED that you are within the provisions of the Grant. As such, you have the EXCLUSIVE right of possession and enjoyment within the surface of your boundaries, including the use of the water, timber, stone and other resources to further your mineral activities. Provided that you stay on the black and white line of the Mining Law, NOBODY has the authority to come along and challenge your activity unless you are somehow damaging their property. (And in that regard, even if you buried the land owner downstream of you in ten feet of tailings and washed his house into the river because you built a dam on the creek and it suddenly burst, his only challenge to you can be in civil court). This grant, that originated in the Act of 1866, as amended in 1872, carries with it not only the right to go out upon the public lands to search for unpappropriated minerals, but the right to lay claim to them, to develop them, to occupy the claim, to utilize the surface and waters to develop the minerals, but also the right to secure paramount title to the claim. Provided that you comply with the terms of the grant, there is no lawful authority for ANYONE to come along and attempt to interfere with your legitimate mining related activities. Not BLM, not USFS, not the State, not the county, not the city officials, not the "water police" and also not the pesky neighbor. Anyone who does come along and interfere with your granted right without having the lawful authority to do so is a trespasser any attempts to infringe or impair your granted rights is considered not only a takings, but a crime.
At this stage, based on your comments, I would say that you are still under the assumption that some type of authority does extend to your activities while on your claim. As well, you seem to assume that the Layer Cake was really about who has jurisdiction. If that is what you gleaned from Hal's "Layer Cake" discussion, then you misunderstood the point he was making. I know Hal very well, consider him not only a mentor, but also a good friend, so feel that he would agree that you may have somewhat misunderstood what the Layer Cake was about. The basics of that presentation was to illustrate that there are different layers of land out there. The two layers that he most wanted to differentiate between was Public Land and Public Domain. (I believe that what really spurred Hal on to discuss how and why they differ probably has much to do with some comments in the media over the recent Tracy case and especially the statements by Prosecutor Fong to the jury at the trial that the place where Cliff was working was "THEIR land". Hal and I had a couple of conversations about those public statements, both agreeing that they were not only irresponsible, but also very dangerous, because they would encourage Joe Q. Public to trespass on people's claims).
Public Land is a term that we all know, but that very few people actually understand. While many people desribe it as "the public's land" or "everyone's land", it is not this way at all. Lawfully, what Public Land is, is land that is held in trust by the United States Government for disposal to the people in the hope that they will put it to good use that will create a benefit for all. As such, Congress passed a number of pieces of legislation which would dispose of these lands. These included, but were certainly not limited to the Homestead Act, the several Mining Acts, the Desert Reclamation Act, the Grazing Acts and others, all of which conveyed a right to the people to go out on the public lands and to lay claim to them for varying purposes, as outlined and in accordance to the Acts. In a few instances, Congress even passed a few acts that granted specific individuals with the right lay claim to public lands for a specific project that would be of a particular benefit to the country at large. The Suttro Tunnel Act, which specifically granted to a mining engineer named Suttro the right to drive a tunnel for mine drainage and venilation on the Comstock Lode is probably the best example of an act passed to grant a property right to one individual that would ultimately impact the country at large. Railroad grants also come to mind in this regard.
Once a claim or right is established upon the Public Land by a person (typically called a "settler", which we miners very much are), the land in question ceases to be Public Land and becomes Public Domain. Public Domain can best be defined as land which is currently claimed or under occupation under the varying land laws, but in which the paramount title is still held in trust by the government. Even today, mining claims are not the only lands which are part of the Public Domain, as Grazing Lands, as well as lands claimed under the Desert Reclamation Act are also considered to be on Public Domain. In the case of the mining law, the claims are so far removed to the Public Domain, that when the National Forests were first set up, mining claims were to be regarded as a segregated estate from the Forest System and were to be "removed" from the sytem. Lawfully, this is still true today, but it's one of those issues we have with USFS acting outside its authority.
In all of the above cases, it is the position of the law that each claimant's entry is to be assumed to have been made in good faith and there was no provision for the government to come in and interfere with the claimant on the grounds that his entry might be illegitimate. Despite this, a "safety mechanism" was installed in each law to protect the grantor (and therefore other grantees) from those persons who filed claims with the intention to obtain free land for some purpose other than prescribed by law. In the case of the Desert Reclamation and Homestead Acts, the settler had to "prove up" on his claim within a period of five years in order to obtain the patent. Originally, the mining law had no such safety provision and this was the primary reason why the Acts of 1866 and 1870 were amended in 1872, which provided not only a method to validate the existence of a valuable mineral discovery, but also a method to determine whether lands were better suited for mining or for agricultural.
However, there is also another layer to the cake, in that these varying acts granted differing estates of the Public Lands. For example, the Grazing Acts, the Desert Reclamation Act and also the Homestead Act only granted the surface estate of the land as their intention was to utilize the surface for some beneficial use - in all cases for food production (farming or ranching). The Suttro Tunnel Act, as another example, only granted the subsurface, as tunneling through the subsurface to create drainage, venilation and transport between the varying existing mines on the Comstock was the intention. Suttro received no mineral rights. The mining acts however, were different in that Congress recognized that merely granting the minerals was not enough on its own. Without the use of the surface and the waters, these minerals could not be properly developed and extracted, so the Mining Acts granted not only the minerals (the subsurface), but also the surface, including the resources that would benefit the miner's work.
One thing you might notice here is that the Homesteaders, Desert claimers and Grazing owners were not usually granted the subsurface which would contain the minerals. Ideally, the system was to designed so that mineral lands would never be claimed for agricultural use or vice verse, but as you can appreciate, it really does not work that way. Sometimes very good agrcultural lands located in river bottoms also contain very valuable placer deposits. In this case, even though a farmer may own the land, he does not necessarily own the minerals. (Most people don't understand this). This is yet another layer of that layer cake. Even today, there are still specific provisions for filing a claim on land that is other than Public Land, be it upon the Public Domain of a grazing claim or even upon private property. In some cases, a claim can be filed
on grazing lands, while in others, the minerals may possibly be reseeved to the United States and only be available by sale or lease.
In all cases, an absolute property right is conveyed that others may not interfere with (no, not even the government, provided that the grantee stays on the bright line of the requirements of the grant).
Note that even though you drew the conclusion that Hal was mostly talking jurisdiction of law, thus far, I have not mentioned much of anything regarding jurisdiction. The fact is, even though Hal did certainly talk about varying jurisdictions, this was not really what the layer cake was about, apart from one simple point:
The management agencies - BLM and USFS - are managers of Public Lands and that is where their authority largely ends. USFS, as one example, has ZERO authority regarding the mining law, while BLM's authority is limited to overseeing the orderly disposal of the Public Lands. Neither of these two agencies have authority on the Public Domain.
Another thing that is not quite correct is your list of law.
For example, the United States Constitution is the SUPREME law of the land in this country. If you're religious, you might possibly refer to this as "God's Law", as it was the intention of its authors that the document provide protection to rights which they believe originate from a higher power. But even if you're not religious, the way to see it is that the founder's recognized the contents of that document as rights that all are born with. The purpose of this document was to draw a line in the sand, over which they believed government had no right to cross (ie. the rights SHALL NOT (a powerful term) be infringed).
Congressional Law is simply federal law, as Congress is responsible for the creation of all federal law. The Mining Law (Acts of 1866, 1870, 1872) is part of this body of law. Federal Law is subserviant to the Constitution.
I assume that by "Miner's Law", what you really mean are the customs, rules and regulations of the miners within the varying mining districts.
There is no such thing as Sec. of the Interior's Law, although the Department of the Interior does have administrative guidelines that help to govern its organization. Neither do BLM or USFS have "law". Again, these are administrative policies ONLY. Often they can talk miners into believing that their policies apply to them.
State Law. While State's have laws, as well as constitutions, their actual authority in our activity is incredibly limited. This is specifically identified in Section 3 of the Act of 1872, which states that the states may make rules and regulations governing the possessory title to claims. That is to say that the states may adopt particular laws related to claim filing, but ... these laws must be subject to federal law. (ie. they may not violate the Mining Law, which incidentily also reconizes the authority of the miners to make laws). Beyond that, the states have no authority, but like BLM and USFS they sometimes dupe miners into believing they have a lot of authority. In truth, the Mining Districts have greater authority than the states, having not only the same authority as the states to create laws governing the possessory title (sec. 3 of 1872), but also having an authority that is somewhat equal to that of the United States that the states do NOT have (see Sec. 1 of 1872).
The county's really do not come into this at all apart from having taken over some recording duties. Obviously, the County Sheriff is important because he is the supreme law enforcement officer inside the county, while your commissioners often have a communication line with other branches of government. Having county leadership that is pro-mining is a blessing, but having county leadership that is anti-mining is a bane.
All of this said, if you are looking for a genuine layer cake of lawful authority, the proper list would look like this:
U.S. Constitution
Congress (the Grantor)
The Miners (the Grantees)
Lawfully, the states and BLM are bit off to the side, as their roles are limited to assisting with orderly disposal ONLY. Neither is vested with any authority to actually regulate the ativities of miners, though they do have SOME authority regarding claim filing. Both however, often operate under a Color of Authority.
One of the biggest issues that arises is that there is a popular assumption that some Acts of Congress, particularly the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act effect the Mining Law, since like the Mining Law, they too are Acts of Congress. This would be so were it not for the fact that the U.S. Constitution protects property rights from being infringed. Basically, a law that infringes an existing right is not considered to be lawful.
_________________
"The early miner has never been truly painted. His services were at command to settle differences peacefully, or with pistol in hand to right a grievous wrong to a stranger. His capacity for self-government never has been surpassed."
Upvote
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We can make some type of effort to defend our rights, or we can sit back like sheep and loose all. Bottom line, we need to stick together, pick a battle we can defend and provide financial help to get our fight before the Supreme Court if need be. 
I just bought a HUGE bag of peanuts to throw through the bars of your jail cell as just BS snake oil salesman garbage 
John
