Rinehart

California was shaped by the search for gold. In time, the state’s other natural treasures—its waters and wildlife, its forests and coastlines—proved similar draws. We consider here a conflict arising from the competing desires to exploit and to preserve these various resources. The People assert the state may, in pursuit of protecting fish habitats and the quality of the state’s waterways, temporarily ban a particular method of gold mining pending adoption of suitable regulahons. Defendant Brandon Lance Rinehart, convicted of engaging in the banned mining technique, asserts it is the only practicable method and federal law promoting mining on federal land preempts the state’s contrary legislahon. The Court of Appeal concluded Rinehart potentially was correct and remanded for consideration of additional evidence and argument. We granted the People’s petition for review.

We conclude the state’s moratorium is not preempted. The federal laws Rinehart relies upon reflect a congressional intent to afford prospectors secure possession of, and in some instances title to, the places they mine. But while Congress sought to protect miners’ real property interests, it did not go…