U.S. Interior group to mull giveaway of public lands' mineral wealth under 19th-century law

WASHINGTON D.C, Feb. 22, 2022 — The U.S. Department of the Interior announced today that it will establish an interagency advisory group focused on reforming the nation's 150-year-old law governing taxpayer-subsidized hardrock mining on federally managed public lands.

The outdated General Mining Act -- which President Ulysses S. Grant signed into law in 1872 -- exempts foreign and domestic mining companies from having to pay the American people for the valuable minerals the miners extract and sell in the global marketplace.

The advisory group also is focused on regulations and permitting, but only of new mines.

Mine tailings, Old Round Mountain cemetery, Nevada. (Photo © Tony Huegel)

According to the Interior Department, the new working group is intended to inform potential rulemaking efforts on mining. Its goal is to support President Biden’s vision for a "whole-of-government" effort to promote sustainable and responsible domestic production of critical minerals. 

“If we’re going to meet the needs of the clean energy economy while respecting our obligations to Tribal Nations, Western communities, taxpayers, the environment, and future generations, we need an all-of-government approach and the input of all Americans to make sure mining in this country is sustainable, responsible, and efficient,” said Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland.

“The 150th anniversary of the Mining Law of 1872 is a great opportunity to take a hard look at how we regulate and permit mining in this country," said Haaland. "We look forward to working with our federal partners to update mining policies to reflect our current realities.” 

The General Mining Act of 1872, a law born of the mid-19th-century California Gold Rush, provides limited governance of mining on public lands for such critical minerals as gold, silver, copper, uranium, cobalt and lithium.

The law allows mining companies to stake claims on the vast majority of public lands regardless of potential conflicts with other uses. It law does not require royalties to be paid to the taxpayer for the extraction and sale of valuable minerals, and does not include any environmental, reclamation or financial assurance provisions. 

The working group will bring together experts in mine permitting and environmental law to review existing mining laws, regulations and permitting processes.

It will recommend improvements to ensure that new production meets strong environmental, community and Tribal engagement standards during all stages of mine development -- from exploration through reclamation -- while improving the efficiency and outcomes of the permitting process, consistent with the newly released Biden-Harris Administration’s Fundamental Principles for Domestic Mining Reform.

The working group also will assess the content and effectiveness of mining governance structures in other jurisdictions and identify potential best practices that could be adopted by the United States.  

In the coming months, the working group will convene a series of roundtables designed to receive comments and feedback from Tribal Nations, state and local governments, environmental justice groups, labor organizations, the mining industry, environmental and conservation groups, outdoor recreation interests, scientists, legal experts, and others. Additional information about these roundtables, and instructions on how to participate, will be provided in the Federal Register.

(Photo: Nevada's foreign-owned Round Mountain gold mine -- cited as the model for a mine proposed for Idaho's Centennial Mountains -- rises above the cemetery at the old Round Mountain townsite. With high-grade veins of gold now exhausted, miners are excavating vast open-pit mines to leach trace amounts of gold using dangerous liquid cyanide solutions.)