Known Gold Deposits in the United States

As part of its regular program to provide timely information on domestic mineral commodities, the Bureau of Mines conducted an engineering appraisal of more than 1,300 lode and placer gold deposits in the United States to determine their gold production potential. While these deposits were estimated to contain over 400 million ounces of gold, only 9 million ounces, or slightly more than 2 percent, was found to be producible at $35 per ounce under prevailing mining and metallurgical technologies.

The study revealed that any significant increase in available gold in the United States is most likely to come from the discovery of new sources, intensive exploration and development of the more promising known mineralized areas, and development of new or improved mining and metallurgical techniques.


Date of Report: April 26, 2013
Number of Pages: 28
Order Number: G1366
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The Reclamation Fund: A Primer

Charles V. Stern
Specialist in Natural Resources Policy

The Reclamation Fund was established in 1902 to fund the development of irrigation projects on arid and semiarid lands of the 17 western states. It originated as a revolving fund for construction projects and was supported by the proceeds of the sale of land and water in the western United States. Over time, it was amended to receive proceeds from a number of other sources. It is currently derived from repayments and revenues associated with federal water resources development as well as the sales, rentals, and leases (including natural resource leasing) of federal land in the western United States. Portions of the fund’s balance are appropriated annually by Congress for multiple purposes, including some of the operational expenditures of the Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) and the Power Marketing Administrations. Through FY2012, collections deposited into the Reclamation Fund totaled more than $40 billion, while total appropriations from the fund totaled more than $30 billion.

The Reclamation Fund did not finance all Reclamation investments in the western United States. As a result of limited funding availability, a number of large dams and other Reclamation investments were financed by the General Fund of the U.S. Treasury. Notwithstanding advances to the Reclamation Fund by Congress in 1910 and 1931, deposits into and appropriations out of the fund have been roughly equal over time. From the 1940s until the 1990s, the fund maintained a small, relatively stable balance. Beginning in the mid-1990s, balances in the fund began to increase significantly as receipts from mineral leasing and power sales increased, while appropriations from the fund largely remained static. At the end of FY2012, the fund had a balance of more than $10.8 billion, and it is expected to continue to grow.

Receipts deposited into the Reclamation Fund are made available to Reclamation by Congress through annual discretionary appropriations bills, which are subject to congressional budgetary allocations. Some have proposed that Congress appropriate some portion of the surplus balance in the Reclamation Fund to reclamation activities in western states, including new water storage projects or the rehabilitation of existing projects. These interests argue that the Reclamation Fund was set up to benefit western states and should now be used to increase investments in these areas.

As the balance of the Reclamation Fund continues to increase, Congress may reevaluate the Reclamation Fund’s status, including its financing of new or ongoing activities. The Omnibus Lands Act of 2009 (P.L. 111-11) included provisions that will transfer $120 million per year from the fund from FY2020 through FY2034, without further appropriation, to a separate fund that provides for Indian Water Settlement construction projects. In the 113th Congress, a bill before the Senate (S. 715) proposes to redirect funding that would otherwise go to the Reclamation Fund for the construction of rural water projects. Major changes to the Reclamation Fund may have scoring implications in the annual budget and under congressional pay-as-you-go rules.


Date of Report: April 18, 2013
Number of Pages: 10
Order Number: R41844
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Stress In Mammals: The Potential Influence of Fishery-Induced Stress on Dolphins in the Eastern Tropical Pacific Ocean

There is concern that fishing methods used by the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean (ETP) tuna purse-seine fishery may cause stress to dolphins, and that such stress may be having an adverse impact on reproduction or survival in these mammals. Recent legislation, the 1997 International Dolphin Conservation Program Act, required this review of stress-related research to provide a context for future scientific findings. This review includes background information on the ETP tuna fishery and the dolphins involved. General information regarding stress theory and the physiology of stress is also included. Four general areas of study are reviewed that provide information on physiological and behavioral responses to stress that may be relevant to dolphins involved in the ETP tuna purse-seine fishery. These include laboratory research, research on domestic animals, clinical studies of stress effects in humans, and research on freeranging mammal populations.

Potential stress effects of specific fisheries operations (search, chase, and capture) on the dolphins involved in the ETP fishery are considered. Search operations may cause disruption of habitat utilization, foraging activities, and social activities. Chase and capture operations may cause immediate or short-term physiological responses such as activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis in response to psychological or social stressors. Psychosocial stressors include separation of mother and young, separation from social groups, social aggression during net confinement, and novelty. Other potential short-term responses of dolphins to chase and capture include severe muscle damage resulting in a condition known as capture myopathy and hyperthermia.

The potential sublethal effects of long-term stress include stress-induced pathologies, compromise to the immune system, as well as impaired reproduction, growth, and metabolism. Based on information from other mammals it is plausible that reproduction for some proportion of female dolphins will be disrupted, either as a result of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal response to stress or through the development of pathologies resulting from chronic stress. Cow-calf separation can occur as the result of chase and capture, and it appears that young animals may be particularly vulnerable to impacts of fisheries operations. Maternal separation and novelty may induce significant hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal responses in young animals, and this can result in impaired growth.

Although this review of existing literature regarding stress in mammals can not provide a quantitative answer to the question of whether the tuna fishery is causing stress to affected dolphin populations, the available information and evidence point to the likelihood that physiological stress is induced by fisheries activities. It is therefore plausible, that stress resulting from chase and capture in the ETP yellowfin tuna purseseine fishery could have a population level effect on one or more dolphin stocks.

Date of Report: April 23, 2013
Number of Pages: 128
Order Number: G1361
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Horse Slaughter Prevention Bills and Issues

Tadlock Cowan
Analyst in Natural Resources and Rural Development

In 2006, two Texas plants and one in Illinois slaughtered nearly 105,000 horses for human food, mainly for European and Asian consumers. In 2007, court action effectively closed the Texas plants, and a ban in Illinois closed the plant in that state. However, U.S. horses continue to be shipped to Mexico and Canada for slaughter. Several states have explored opening horse slaughtering facilities, and Oklahoma enacted to lift the state’s 50-year-old ban on processing horsemeat. Animal welfare activists and advocates for horses have continued to press Congress for a federal ban. The Prevention of Equine Cruelty Act of 2009 (H.R. 503/S. 727) in the 111th Congress would have made it a crime to knowingly possess, ship, transport, sell, deliver, or receive any horse, carcass, or horse flesh intended for human consumption. The bills were referred to the House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security and the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, respectively, and no further action was taken. Companion bills entitled the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act of 2011 (S. 1176 and H.R. 2966) were introduced in the 112th Congress. The bills would have amended the Horse Protection Act (P.L. 91-540) to prohibit shipping, transporting, possessing, purchasing, selling, or donating horses and other equines to be slaughtered for human consumption. The bills were referred to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, and to the House Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy, and Poultry. No further action was taken.

A general provision in the House-passed FY2012 Agriculture appropriations bill (H.R. 2112, §739) would have continued to prohibit funds to pay salaries or expenses of Food Safety Inspection Service personnel to inspect horses under the Federal Meat Inspection Act (21 U.S.C. 603). This provision was not included in the Senate-passed version of H.R. 2112 or in the final bill (P.L. 112-55). Although an amendment by Senator Landrieu to the FY2013 continuing resolution (H.R. 933) would have prohibited FSIS inspection, the CR continues the policy of P.L. 112-55, permitting FSIS to inspect horse meat. A facility in New Mexico became the first to apply for a grant of inspection from FSIS following the lifting of the ban. That application could be approved within months. Another facility in Missouri also has an application pending.

The provision prohibiting FSIS inspection had been included in Agriculture appropriations bills since 2008. The ban does not prohibit the transport of U.S. horses to Canada or Mexico for slaughter. Its absence in the FY2012 appropriations bill may have reflected a June 2011 Government Accountability Office report that recommended action on the unintended consequences of ending horse slaughter in 2007. The report provided evidence of a rise in state and local investigations for horse neglect and more abandoned horses since 2007. Some opponents of the horse slaughter ban, including the American Veterinary Medical Association, have argued that humane slaughter in the United States is preferable to less-regulated slaughter in Mexican abattoirs, or more humane than abandoning unwanted horses to starve because owners can no longer afford to feed and care for the animals. Animal welfare groups have countered the argument that large numbers of unwanted horses are being abandoned.

Recent news from the EU that horse meat was found in various processed foods has raised the profile of the horse slaughter issue in the United States. The Safeguard American Food Exports (SAFE) Act (S. 541/H.R. 1094) was introduced in the 113th Congress. The bill would amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to prohibit the sale or transport of equines and equine parts in interstate or foreign commerce for human consumption. The House bill was referred to the both the Committee on Energy and Commerce and the Committee on Agriculture. The Senate bill was referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.


Date of Report: April 9, 2013
Number of Pages: 13
Order Number: RS21842
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Wagons on the Santa Fe Trail: 1822-1880

The first wagons to cross the plains from Missouri to New Mexico were part of William Becknell's 1822 Santa Fe trading expedition. The year previous, Becknell and five companions had been the first American traders to penetrate the newly independent Mexican nation. The handsome profits realized on that venture were the driving force behind the considerably more ambitious second expedition, which set out for Santa Fe within nine months of the first.

According to Becknell's now-famous "journal," first published in the pages of the Missouri lntelligencer in 1823, his 1822 company  consisted  of  "21 men,  with  three  waggons. "  It appears that only one of the wagons belonged to the expedition's leader, however. This wagon, it was later reported, had cost $150 in Missouri and was sold by Becknell in New Mexico for $700. The other wagons were probably disposed of in a like manner; they do not seem to have returned to Missouri. What these wagons looked like, their hauling capacities, and where they were made and by whom-­ all this is unknown. Their importance, however, is unquestioned. They proved  that merchandise­ laden wagons could navigate the 800-plus miles between Franklin, Missouri, and Santa Fe--a remarkable  feat that did not go unnoticed.

No wagons were reported on the Santa Fe Trail in 1823, but the 1824 caravan contained an amazing assemblage of vehicles. Meredith Miles Marmaduke, a member of this company, recorded in his diary on May 24 that they traveled with "2 road waggons, 20 dearborns, 2 carts and one small piece of cannon. " Augustus Storrs, another member of the expedition, wrote some months later that there had been "twenty-three four-wheeled vehicles, one of which was a common road wagon. "Although Marmaduke and  Storrs do not agree on the number of vehicles in the caravan, it is important to note their use of the term "road wagon." According to transportation historian Don Berkebile, in his Carriage Terminology: An Historical Dictionary, the term has two definitions. One describes a vehicle also known as a buggy.  The term was "also loosely applied," Berkebile tells us, "to larger WAGONS that were employed in the movement of materials or merchandise over the roads. "The second definition is probably the one intended by Marmaduke and Storrs; Santa Fe trader and historian Josiah Gregg uses "road-wagon" in his Commerce of the Prairies (1844) to denote freight wagons. Although the term leaves us to speculate on the appearance of these vehicles, it is possible that the road wagons in the 1824 caravan were the first actual freight wagons to travel the Santa Fe Trail.

Date of Report: April 22, 2013
Number of Pages: 146
Order Number: G1360
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