PUBLIC LAW 105-277—OCT. 21, 1998 112 STAT. 2681-288 (c) REPORT. — On September 30, 1999, the Secretary of the Interior shall file with the House and Senate Committees on Appropriations and the Committee on Resources of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources of the Senate a report on actions taken by the Department under the plan submitted pursuant to section 314(c) of the Department of the Interior and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 1997 (Public Law 104-208). (d) MINERAL EXAMINATIONS.— In order to process patent applications in a timely and responsible manner, upon the request of a patent applicant, the Secretary of the Interior shall allow the applicant to fund a qualified third-party contractor to be selected by the Bureau of Land Management to conduct a mineral examination of the mining claims or mill sites contained in a patent application as set forth in subsection (b). The Bureau of Land Management shall have the sole responsibility to choose and pay the thirdparty contractor in accordance with the standard procedures employed by the Bureau of Land Management in the retention of third-party contractors. SEC. 313. None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be used for the purposes of acquiring lands in the counties of Gallia, Lawrence, Monroe, or Washington, Ohio, for the Wayne National Forest. SEC. 314. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, amounts appropriated to or earmarked in committee reports for the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Indisui Health Service by Public Laws 103-138, 103-332, 104-134, 104-208 and 105-83 for payments to tribes and tribal organizations for contract support costs associated with self-determination or self-governance contracts, grants, compacts, or annual funding agreements with the Bureau of Indian Affairs or the Indian Health Service as funded by such Acts, are the total amounts available for fiscal years 1994 through 1998 for such purposes, except that, for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, tribes and tribal organizations may use their tribal priority allocations for immet indirect costs of ongoing contracts, grants, self- governance compacts or annual funding agreements. SEC. 315. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, for fiscal year 1999 the Secretaries of Agriculture and the Interior are authorized to limit competition for watershed restoration project contracts as part of the "Jobs in the Woods" component of the President's Forest Plan for the Pacific Northwest to individuals and entities in historically timber-dependent areas in the States of Washington, Oregon, and northern California that have been affected by reduced timber harvesting on Federal lands. SEC. 316. None of the funds collected under the Recreational Fee Demonstration program may be used to plan, design, or construct a visitor center or any other permanent structure without prior approval of the House and the Senate Committees on Appropriations if the estimated total cost of the facility exceeds $500,000. SEC. 317. (a) None of the funds made available in this Act or any other Act providing appropriations for the Department of the Interior, the Forest Service or the Smithsonian Institution may be used to submit nominations for the designation of Biosphere Reserves pursuant to the Man and Biosphere progrsmi administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization.
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