Mining Waste, Fraud, and Abuse Prevention Act of 2025
Mining Waste, Fraud, and Abuse Prevention Act of 2025 is a comprehensive reform of how locatable minerals on public domain land are managed. The bill creates a new regulatory framework that adds a permit system for mineral activities, imposes ongoing fees and royalties, strengthens enforcement against noncompliance, and establishes a dedicated Hardrock Minerals Reclamation Fund to finance mining reclamation and related administration. It also changes the patenting landscape for mining claims, limits certain patent opportunities, and tightens requirements around assessment work, fees, and site use. Overall, the act shifts more of the financial and regulatory burden onto claim holders and operators while creating structured funding for reclamation and enhanced federal oversight. Key design features include: a mandatory permit regime for most mineral activities (with a casual-use exception), annual and location-based fees, a royalty on production, enhanced enforcement and auditing powers, and a transition path for implementation and ongoing program review. The bill also clarifies definitions (e.g., locatable minerals, casual use, claim holder) to support the new framework and aims to address waste, fraud, and abuse in hardrock mining on federal lands.
Key Points
- 1Establishment of a Hardrock Minerals Reclamation Fund and new fee/royalty regime
- 2- Creates annual claim maintenance fees of $200 per unpatented claim, millsite, or tunnel site (starting 2027) and location fees of $50 per location notice, both adjustable by CPI.
- 3- Proceeds go to administering the program first, with any excess deposited in the Fund for reclamation and related purposes.
- 4Royalty on locatable minerals with exemptions for certain existing operations
- 5- Requires a royalty of 5-8% of gross income from production of locatable minerals on qualifying Federal land, with rates set by the Secretary and variable by mineral.
- 6- Exempts production on Federal land that already has an approved plan of operations/permit and is producing commercially as of enactment; royalty applies to other lands not already under approved operations.
- 7- Royalties and related payments go into the Fund; a royalty relief provision allows reductions if it would promote greater recovery or conserve resources, with a 60-day effectiveness trigger after notice and committee reporting.
- 8Permit system and coordination with NEPA
- 9- Replaces or supplements certain General Mining Law activities with a formal permit regime for mineral activities on Federal land that could disturb surface resources (casual use exempt).
- 10- Requires exploration permits for non-casual exploration activities; coordination with NEPA process to align environmental review timelines.
- 11Strengthened enforcement, reporting, and accountability
- 12- Requires comprehensive royalty/fee accounting, annual inspections for producing or high-impact claims, and robust recordkeeping/ reporting with access for audits.
- 13- Establishes civil and criminal penalties (up to $500 per day per violation for noncompliance; higher penalties for false information or unlawful removal; criminal penalties up to $50,000 fine or 2 years' imprisonment).
- 14- Authorizes audits, hearings, subpoenas, and civil actions (including injunctions) to enforce provisions; creates oversight and potential penalties for nonpayment or underpayment.
- 15Patent limitations and transition rules
- 16- No patent shall be issued for mining claims unless a patent application was filed by September 30, 1994, and all requirements were met; repeal of a prior patent statute (Section 2325) is enacted.
- 17- Amends the general approach to ownership and patent rights on locatable minerals, with a pathway to patent under certain determinations but with withdrawal risk if those determinations are reversed.
- 18Definitions and scope
- 19- Clarifies terms such as locatable mineral, hardrock mineral, mineral activity, casual use, claim holder, exploration, processing, and secretary concerns (Interior Department agencies) to support the new regulatory regime.
- 20- Delineates what counts as casual use (hand tools, nonmotorized methods) versus activities that trigger permitting (e.g., mechanized equipment, roads, explosives).