Less than three months after he had sold federal land worth $1 billion in mining rights to a Danish company for $275, Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt was forced to sell another $2.9 billion piece of land in Arizona for $1,745. Babbitt is required to make these sales under the Mining Act of 1872, which western senators refuse to change. In 1994, under the same law, Babbitt signed over land containing about $10 billion in gold to a Canadian company for about $10,000.

†