HR1366-119

What This Bill Does

H.R. 1366, the Mining Regulatory Clarity Act, would add subsection (c) to 30 U.S.C. 42. A proprietor of a lode or placer mining claim could locate as many mill sites as reasonably necessary for operations associated with claims in its proposed plan of operations. Each site remains limited to five acres. Use and occupancy require an approved plan under the applicable Interior or Agriculture regulations; this is not immediate permission to operate everywhere. The latest official action checked September 22, 2026 is placement on the Senate calendar on March 17, 2026. H.R. 1366 is not law.

The additional pathway covers federally owned land open to location under the mining laws, including mineral-in-character land, nonmineral land and land whose mineral character is undetermined. It expressly allows a mill site on the same tract as an existing lode or placer claim, without changing that claim's validity or associated rights. A mill site itself conveys no mineral rights. Existing regulations already permit multiple reasonably necessary five-acre mill sites and uses such as waste-rock and tailings disposal. The change is not the first authorization of multiple sites or mining waste disposal; the broader statutory land categories and overlap rule are central differences.

Who Benefits and How

Hardrock mining companies gain a statutory route to secure land for reasonably necessary support operations across the specified land categories, reducing barriers associated with the existing nonmineral mill-site framework. The bill does not set a numerical aggregate site limit, but reasonable necessity, the five-acre individual limit and approved-plan requirements still constrain occupation. It neither validates every underlying mining claim nor dispenses with discovery requirements wherever those otherwise apply.

A new Treasury Abandoned Hardrock Mine Fund would receive the existing claim-maintenance fees collected on mill sites located under the new subsection, not all federal mining fees, location fees or a new royalty. Interior could spend available balances without further appropriations, solely through the existing abandoned hardrock mine program in 30 U.S.C. 1245. The incorporated allocation is 50 percent for State and Tribal grants and 50 percent for Interior work on federal land. Interior may transfer federal-work funding to Agriculture for National Forest System land; the statute does not reserve separate 25-percent shares for each department.

State and Tribal cleanup programs, Interior restoration programs and potentially Forest Service projects gain a dedicated funding source. Communities near abandoned hardrock mines may benefit through reduced contamination and physical hazards when projects are funded and completed. Existing program limits continue, including the prohibition on using this money to satisfy CERCLA obligations agreed to in a legal settlement or imposed by a court. This is not a general release from current operators' cleanup responsibilities. The bill supplies no guaranteed revenue estimate or new $3 billion appropriation.

Who Bears the Burden and How

The Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service must administer the additional mill-site pathway and applicable plan approvals. Interior must account for the earmarked fees and manage cleanup expenditures and allocations. Claimants continue to face applicable filing and maintenance requirements. BLM currently lists a $200 annual maintenance fee per mill site, subject to existing small-miner waiver rules; H.R. 1366 does not increase that rate. Electing to locate additional sites can increase total fees without constituting a new statutory fee rate.

Nearby residents and public-land users could face additional disturbance or competing land uses if the broader mill-site pathway results in approved development. That is a conditional impact, not a finding that every site produces pollution or that environmental permitting has been waived. Savings clauses preserve land withdrawals, restrictions on land not open to mining, federal regulation in withdrawn areas and extinguished-rights limits. The bill does not expressly repeal environmental-review or other permitting laws.

The patenting paragraph says a mill site under this section is not eligible for patenting, wording broader than the repeated references elsewhere to this subsection. It therefore should not be silently summarized as a privatization right or narrowed to an unrestricted patent option for older sites. At the same time the text preserves existing claimant rights and does not modify the specified 2024 appropriations provision restricting patent-application processing, including its exceptions. The clerical amendments reorganize maintenance-fee language and citations without changing the fee amounts.

Key Provisions

• Establishes an additional mill-site route across mineral, nonmineral and undetermined federal land open to mining, subject to reasonable necessity and approved plans.
• Provides a five-acre limit per site, no mill-site mineral rights, an express overlap rule and a patenting prohibition alongside existing-rights and withdrawal savings clauses.
• Establishes a cleanup fund from maintenance fees on the new subsection's sites, with spending authority limited to available balances and the existing abandoned-mine program.
• Requires the incorporated 50-percent State/Tribal and 50-percent federal-work allocation, while allowing transfers for National Forest System cleanup.