Sponsors (5)
The bill clarifies and expands mining site authority while creating a dedicated, quickly-spendable fund to clean up abandoned hardrock mines — trading faster, earmarked remediation funding and regulatory certainty for miners against higher local contamination risks, potential conservation conflicts on public lands, and reduced general Treasury receipts.
Rural communities and state/local governments will have a new dedicated Abandoned Hardrock Mine Fund (fed by mill-site fees) and the Interior Secretary can spend those funds without further appropriation, enabling faster remediation and mitigation of abandoned hardrock mines under the IIJA program.
Small-scale miners and claim owners can locate multiple 5-acre mill sites within an approved plan, giving them clearer legal authority to site waste rock and tailings nearer their operations and reducing regulatory ambiguity for small mining businesses.
Rural communities and nearby utilities/energy companies may face increased disturbance and higher local contamination risks because mill-site locations could place waste rock and tailings closer to communities and waterways.
Taxpayers could be indirectly affected because earmarking claim maintenance fees to the new Fund reduces general Treasury receipts and may constrain other federal priorities or require offsetting revenue measures.
Rural communities and state governments may see increased mining access on public lands tied to approved plans—even where mineral character is undetermined—potentially creating conflicts with conservation protections despite statutory savings clauses.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Creates a new rule allowing mining claim holders to locate multiple small (up to 5-acre) mill sites as part of approved plans of operations on certain public lands, and sets where the related claim maintenance fee money goes. It establishes an Abandoned Hardrock Mine Fund in the Treasury to receive those fees and allows the Secretary of the Interior to spend those monies (without further appropriation) to carry out existing federal abandoned mine cleanup authority under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
Introduced February 12, 2025 by Catherine Marie Cortez Masto · Last progress February 12, 2025