public interest. He may include in geothermal leases a provision requiring the lessee to operate under such a reasonable cooperative or unit plan, and he may prescribe such a plan under which such lessee shall operate, which shall adequately protect the rights of all parties in interest, including the United States. Any such plan may, in the discretion of the Secretary, provide for vesting in the Secretary or any other person, committee, or Federal or State agency designated therein, authority to alter or modify from time to time the rate of prospecting and development and the quantity and rate of production under such plan. All leases operated under any such plan approved or prescribed by the Secretary shall be excepted in determining holdings or control for the purposes of section 7 of this Act. When separate tracts cannot be independently developed and operated in conformity with an established well-spacing or development program, any lease, or a portion thereof, may be pooled with other lands, whether or not owned by the United States, under a communitization or drilling agreement providing for an apportionment of production or royalties among the separate tracts of land comprising the drilling or spacing unit when determined by the Secretary to be in the public interest, and operations or production pursuant to such an agreement shall be deemed to be operations or production as to each lease committed thereto. The Secretary is hereby authorized, on such conditions as he may prescribe, to approve operating, drilling, or development contracts made by one or more lessees of geothermal leases, with one or more persons, associations, or corporations whenever, in his discretion, the conservation of natural products or the public convenience or necessity may require or the interests of the United States may be best served thereby. All leases operated under such approved operating, drilling, or development contracts, and interests thereunder, shall be excepted in determining holdings or control under section 7 of this Act. SEC. 19. Upon request of the Secretary, other Federal departments and agencies shall furnish him with any relevant data then in their possession or knowledge concerning or having bearing upon fair and adequate charges to be made for geothermal steam produced or to be produced for conversion to electric power or other purposes. Data given to any department or agency as confidential under law shall not be furnished in any fashion which identifies or tends to identify the business entity whose activities are the subject of such data or the person or persons who furnished such information. 84 STAT. 1572 SEC. 20. All moneys received under this Act from public lands Moneys. under the jurisdiction of the Secretary shall be disposed of in the same manner as moneys received from the sale of public lands. Moneys received under this Act from other lands shall be disposed of in the same manner as other receipts from such lands. Publication in SEC. 21. (a) Within one hundred and twenty days after the effective date of this Act, the Secretary shall cause to be published in the Federal Register. Federal Register a determination of all lands which were included within any known geothermal resources area on the effective date of the Act. He shall likewise publish in the Federal Register from time to time his determination of other known geothermal resources areas specifying in each case the date the lands were included in such area; and (b) Geothermal resources in lands the surface of which has passed from Federal ownership but in which the minerals have been reserved to the United States shall not be developed or produced except under geothermal leases made pursuant to this Act. If the Secretary of the Interior finds that such development is imminent, or that production from a well heretofore drilled on such lands is imminent, he shall so report to the Attorney General, and the Attorney General is authorized 84 STAT. 1573 Waste, prevention. Rules and regulations. 30 USC 530. 30 USC 181. 30 USC 281. and directed to institute an appropriate proceeding in the United States district court of the district in which such lands are located, to quiet the title of the United States in such resources, and if the court determines that the reservation of minerals to the United States in the lands involved included the geothermal resources, to enjoin their production otherwise than under the terms of this Act: Provided, That upon an authoritative judicial determination that Federal mineral reservation does not include geothermal steam and associated geothermal resources the duties of the Secretary of the Interior to report and of the Attorney General to institute proceedings, as hereinbefore set forth, shall cease. SEC. 22. Nothing in this Act shall constitute an express or implied claim or denial on the part of the Federal Government as to its exemption from State water laws. SEC. 23. (a) All leases under this Act shall be subject to the condition that the lessee will, in conducting his exploration, development, and producing operations, use all reasonable precautions to prevent waste of geothermal steam and associated geothermal resources developed in the lands leased. (b) Rights to develop and utilize geothermal steam and associated geothermal resources underlying lands owned by the United States may be acquired solely in accordance with the provisions of this Act. SEC. 24. The Secretary shall prescribe such rules and regulations as he may deem appropriate to carry out the provisions of this Act. Such regulations may include, without limitation, provisions for (a) the prevention of waste, (b) development and conservation of geothermal and other natural resources, (c) the protection of the public interest, (d) assignment, segregation, extension of terms, relinquishment of leases, development contracts, unitization, pooling, and drilling agreements, (e) compensatory royalty agreements, suspension of operations or production, and suspension or reduction of rentals or royalties, (f) the filing of surety bonds to assure compliance with the terms of the lease and to protect surface use and resources, (g) use of the surface by a lessee of the lands embraced in his lease, (h) the maintenance by the lessee of an active development program, and (i) protection of water quality and other environmental qualities. SEC. 25. As to any land subject to geothermal leasing under section 3 of this Act, all laws which either (a) provide for the disposal of land by patent or other form of conveyance or by grant or by operation of law subject to a reservation of any mineral or (b) prevent or restrict the disposal of such land because of the mineral character of the land, shall hereafter be deemed to embrace geothermal steam and associated geothermal resources as a substance which either must be reserved or must prevent or restrict the disposal of such land, as the case may be. This section shall not be construed to affect grants, patents, or other forms of conveyances made prior to the date of enactment of this Act. SEC. 26. The first two clauses in section 11 of the Act of August 13, 1954 (68 Stat. 708, 716), are amended to read as follows: "As used in this Act, 'mineral leasing laws' shall mean the Act of February 25, 1920 (41 Stat. 437); the Act of April 17, 1926 (44 Stat. 301); the Act of February 7, 1927 (44 Stat. 1057); Geothermal Steam Act of 1970, and all Acts heretofore or hereafter enacted which are amendatory of or supplementary to any of the foregoing Acts; 'Leasing Act minerals' shall mean all minerals which, upon the effective date of this Act, are provided in the mineral leasing laws to be disposed of thereunder and all geothermal steam and associated geothermal resources which, upon the effective date of the Geothermal Steam Act of 1970, are provided in that Act to be disposed of thereunder;". 84 STAT. 1574 SEC. 27. The United States reserves the ownership of and the right Certain mineral to extract under such rules and regulations as the Secretary may pre- rights, retenti on scribe oil, hydrocarbon gas, and helium from all geothermal steam by U. S. and associated geothermal resources produced from lands leased under this Act in accordance with presently applicable laws: Provided, That whenever the right to extract oil, hydrocarbon gas, and helium from geothermal steam and associated geothermal resources produced from such lands is exercised pursuant to this section, it shall be exercised so as to cause no substantial interference with the production of geothermal steam and associated geothermal resources from such lands. Approved December 24, 1970. LEGISLATIVE HISTORY: HOUSE REPORT No. 91-1544 (Comm. on Interior and Insular Affairs). Sept. 16, Oct. 14, Deo. 4, 10, considered and passed Senate. 91st Congress, H. R. 3107 An Act To officially designate the Totten Trail Pumping Station. 84 STAT. 1879 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the pumping Totten Trail station at the Snake Creek arm of the reservoir formed by Garrison Pumping Dam, North Dakota, shall hereafter be known as the Totten Trail Station. Pumping Station. Designation. SEC. 2. Any laws, regulations, documents, or records of the United States in which such pumping station is designated or referred to shall be held to refer to such pumping station under and by the name of "Totten Trail Pumping Station". Approved December 31, 1970. LEGISLATIVE HISTORY: HOUSE REPORT No. 91-1698 (Comm. on Public Works). Deo. 10, considered and passed House. 92nd Congress, S. 70 May 7, 1971 An Act To amend the Rural Electrification Act of 1936, as amended, to provide an additional source of financing for the rural telephone program, and for other purposes. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That it is hereby Rural telephone declared to be the policy of the Congress that the growing capital program. needs of the rural telephone systems require the establishment of a Financing. rural telephone bank which will furnish assured and viable sources of supplementary financing with the objective that said bank will become an entirely privately owned, operated, and financed corporation. The Congress further finds that many rural telephone systems require financing under the terms and conditions provided in title II of the Rural Electrification Act of 1936, as amended. In order to effectuate 63 Stat. 948; this policy, the Rural Electrification Act of 1936, as amended (7 U.S.C. 921-924), is amended as hereinafter provided. SEC. 2. The Rural Electrification Act of 1936, as amended, is amended by adding the following two new titles: "TITLE III 76 Stat. 1140. 7 USC 922. 49 Stat. 1363. 7 USC 901. 85 STAT. 29 "SEC. 301. RURAL TELEPHONE ACCOUNT.-There is hereby established in the Treasury of the United States an account, to be known as the rural telephone account, consisting of so much of the net collec-85 STAT. 30 tion proceeds (as defined in section 406 (a) of this Act) as may be Post, p. 33. necessary to provide for investment in the capital stock of the Rural Telephone Bank in accordance with such section 406(a): Provided, That such investment shall be deemed paid in capital of the said bank notwithstanding that funds representing the proceeds from the sale of such stock shall remain in the rural telephone account until required for actual disbursement in cash by the said bank. "SEC. 302. DEPOSIT OF ACCOUNT MONEYS.-Moneys in the rural telephone account shall remain on deposit in the Treasury of the United States until disbursed. "TITLE IV "SEC. 401. ESTABLISHMENT, GENERAL PURPOSES, AND STATUS OF THE TELEPHONE BANK.—(a) There is hereby established a body corporate to be known as the Rural Telephone Bank (hereinafter called the telephone bank). "(b) The general purposes of the telephone bank shall be to obtain an adequate supply of supplemental funds to the extent feasible from non-Federal sources, to utilize said funds in the making of loans under section 408 of this title, and to conduct its operations to the extent practicable on a self-sustaining basis. "(c) The telephone bank shall be deemed to be an instrumentality of the United States, and shall, for the purposes of jurisdiction and venue, be deemed a citizen and resident of the District of Columbia. The telephone bank is authorized to make payments to State, territorial, and local governments in lieu of property taxes upon real property and tangible personal property which was subject to State, territorial, and local taxation before acquisition by the telephone bank. Such payment may be in the amounts, at the times, and upon such terms as the telephone bank deems appropriate but the telephone bank shall be guided by the policy of making payments not in excess of the taxes which would have been payable upon such property in the condition in which it was acquired. |