§4b Cooperation with Individuals, Municipalities, Etc.; Contracts with Owners; Agreements as to Prices

Summary

The Secretaries of the Interior and Commerce may make formal agreements to work with people, companies, states, cities, schools, or other groups. Before drilling on land where the minerals are not owned by the United States, they must sign contracts with the mineral owners, lessees, or both. Those contracts must say that if potash minerals or oil are found and sold, the owners or lessees must pay the government and its partners a royalty of at least 2½% of the sale value. Payments continue until the total royalties equal no more than the exploration costs, as the two Secretaries decide. Federal claims for reimbursement under the contracts automatically end twenty years after the contracts are approved unless the parties agree to end them sooner. The contracts cannot stop the Secretaries from choosing drilling locations or running exploration, so long as those actions do not unreasonably damage the land or its improvements, and they must state the United States is not liable for damages from reasonable use of the surface needed to do the work.