H.R. 2943, known as the Fossil Preservation Act of 1996, applies
to lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management, the
Forest Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of
Reclamation, and the Corps of Engineers. All other federal and
Indian lands are exempt. Two types of collecting are identified.
Reconnaissance collecting in which less than two square meters
of surface are disturbed, and quarrying which includes all other
forms of collecting. A permit is required for all quarrying,
while permits for reconnaissance collecting are only required
under special conditions. The issue of fossil collecting on
public lands continues to be a contentious subject among
paleontologists, federal land managers, professional societies,
amateur fossil collectors, commercial fossil interests, and
academia. In an effort to reconcile the differences among these
many interest groups, staff from the offices of House sponsors
Johnson and Skeen organized a meeting on May 10, 1996 to review
the latest version of the p