Sponsors (2)
The bill modernizes and funds public-land mining management with a predictable, distance-based fee system that channels revenue to conservation and administration—but it raises costs for many claimants (especially near parks), may reduce on-the-ground reclamation incentives, and creates new compliance and oversight burdens for small miners.
Small-scale miners (operators with ≤10 claims, ≤200 acres, and ≤$50,000 prior-year gross) can be exempted from annual claim fees and assessment-work, reducing their immediate cash and labor burdens.
The bill replaces the old assessment-work regime with a clearer claim-maintenance fee structure (including automatic CPI adjustments at least every 5 years) and consolidates some filings, simplifying compliance and making fees more predictable for claimants.
New fee revenues are directed first to administer mining laws and, if excess, to conservation, tribal historic preservation, state payments, and public-land restoration funds, creating a dedicated funding stream for land and resource programs.
Most claimants face substantially higher annual fees (up to $1,100 per claim), increasing operating costs and likely forcing some claimants to abandon claims or cut activity.
Higher fees concentrated near national parks and monuments could reduce local mining jobs and economic activity in nearby communities that depend on extraction-related employment.
Treating the paid fee as a replacement for assessment-work risks reducing on-the-ground reclamation or activity standards that the prior assessment-work regime incentivized, potentially worsening environmental impacts if 'casual use' limits are not enforced.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Replaces assessment-work with a five-tier, distance-based annual maintenance fee, creates a fee-in-lieu and small-miner exemption, mandates CPI fee adjustments, and authorizes user fees for administration.
Introduced December 11, 2025 by Melanie Ann Stansbury · Last progress December 11, 2025
Rewrites how annual hardrock mining claim maintenance fees are charged and used. It sets a five-tier, distance-based fee schedule (from $300 to $1,100 per claim), makes paid fee compliance replace prior assessment-work and some filing requirements, creates a fee-in-lieu option and an unspecified "small miner" exemption, requires Consumer Price Index (CPI)-based fee adjustments at least every five years with claimant notice by July 1, and authorizes the Interior Secretary to collect user fees to reimburse administrative expenses and to allocate fee revenues for mining-law administration.