House and Senate Democrats are planning to release legislation Wednesday to reform the nation’s 153-year-old mining law by imposing a royalty on minerals dug up on public land.
Democratic Sen. Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico and Rep. Raúl Grijalva of Arizona will introduce the “Mining Waste, Fraud, and Abuse Prevention Act of 2025″ in their respective chamber. It’s unlikely to gain any traction in the current Congress.
The legislation would make numerous changes to the 1872 mining law, from imposing royalties on minerals extracted from federal land to allowing tribes and states to petition the Interior Department to keep certain areas off limits, according to a fact sheet seen by POLITICO’s E&E News.
The Democratic legislation would create a hardrock minerals reclamation fund backed by a new fee. The coal industry already pays such a fee for abandoned mine cleanups.
