HR 7580 — Clean Energy Minerals Reform Act of 2022

The Congress declares that it is the continuing policy of the Federal Government in the national interest to foster and encourage private enterprise in (1) the development of economically sound and stable domestic mining, minerals, metal and mineral reclamation industries, (2) the orderly and economic development of domestic mineral resources, reserves, and reclamation of metals and minerals to help assure satisfaction of industrial, security and environmental needs, (3) mining, mineral, and metallurgical research, including the use and recycling of scrap to promote the wise and efficient use of our natural and reclaimable mineral resources, and (4) the study and development of methods for the disposal, control, and reclamation of mineral waste products, and the reclamation of mined land, so as to lessen any adverse impact of mineral extraction and processing upon the physical environment that may result from mining or mineral activities. For the purpose of this section “minerals” shall include all minerals and mineral fuels including oil, gas, coal, oil shale and uranium. It shall be the responsibility of the Secretary of the Interior to carry out this policy when exercising his authority under such programs as may be authorized by law other than this section.

The miners of each mining district may make regulations not in conflict with the laws of the United States, or with the laws of the State or Territory in which the district is situated, governing the location, manner of recording, amount of work necessary to hold possession of a mining claim, subject to the following requirements: The location must be distinctly marked on the ground so that its boundaries can be readily traced. All records of mining claims made after May 10, 1872, shall contain the name or names of the locators, the date of the location, and such a description of the claim or claims located by reference to some natural object or permanent monument as will identify the claim. On each claim located after the 10th day of May 1872, that is granted a waiver under section 28f of this title, and until a patent has been issued therefor, not less than $100 worth of labor shall be performed or improvements made during each year. On all claims located prior to the 10th day of May 1872, $10 worth of labor shall be performed or improvements made each year, for each one hundred feet in length along the vein until a patent has been issued therefor; but where such claims are held in common, such expenditure may be made upon any one claim; and upon a failure to comply with these conditions, the claim or mine upon which such failure occurred shall be open to relocation in the same manner as if no location of the same had ever been made, provided that the original locators, their heirs, assigns, or legal representatives, have not resumed work upon the claim after failure and before such location. Upon the failure of any one of several coowners to contribute his proportion of the expenditures required hereby, the coowners who have performed the labor or made the improvements may, at the expiration of the year, give such delinquent co-owner personal notice in writing or notice by publication in the newspaper published nearest the claim, for at least once a week for ninety days, and if at the expiration of ninety days after such notice in writing or by publication such delinquent should fail or refuse to contribute his proportion of the expenditure required by this section, his interest in the claim shall become the property of his co-owners who have made the required expenditures. The period within which the work required to be done annually on all unpatented mineral claims located since May 10, 1872, including such claims in the Territory of Alaska, shall commence at 12:01 ante meridian on the first day of September succeeding the date of location of such claim. Where a person or company has or may run a tunnel for the purposes of developing a lode or lodes, owned by said person or company, the money so expended in said tunnel shall be taken and considered as expended on said lode or lodes, whether located prior to or since May 10, 1872; and such person or company shall not be required to perform work on the surface of said lode or lodes in order to hold the same as required by this section. On all such valid claims the annual period ending December 31, 1921, shall continue to 12 o’clock meridian July 1, 1922.

No deposit of common varieties of sand, stone, gravel, pumice, pumicite, or cinders and no deposit of petrified wood shall be deemed a valuable mineral deposit within the meaning of the mining laws of the United States so as to give effective validity to any mining claim hereafter located under such mining laws: Provided, however, That nothing herein shall affect the validity of any mining location based upon discovery of some other mineral occurring in or in association with such a deposit. “Common varieties” as used in this subchapter and sections 601 and 603 of this title does not include deposits of such materials which are valuable because the deposit has some property giving it distinct and special value and does not include so-called “block pumice” which occurs in nature in pieces having one dimension of two inches or more. “Petrified wood” as used in this subchapter and sections 601 and 603 of this title means agatized, opalized, petrified, or silicified wood, or any material formed by the replacement of wood by silica or other matter.

(a) Prospecting, mining or processing operations Any mining claim hereafter located under the mining laws of the United States shall not be used, prior to issuance of patent therefor, for any purposes other than prospecting, mining or processing operations and uses reasonably incident thereto. (b) Reservations in the United States to use of the surface and surface resources Rights under any mining claim hereafter located under the mining laws of the United States shall be subject, prior to issuance of patent therefor, to the right of the United States to manage and dispose of the vegetative surface resources thereof and to manage other surface resources thereof (except mineral deposits subject to location under the mining laws of the United States). Any such mining claim shall also be subject, prior to issuance of patent therefor, to the right of the United States, its permittees, and licensees, to use so much of the surface thereof as may be necessary for such purposes or for access to adjacent land: Provided, however, That any use of the surface of any such mining claim by the United States, its permittees or licensees, shall be such as not to endanger or materially interfere with prospecting, mining or processing operations or uses reasonably incident thereto: Provided further, That if at any time the locator requires more timber for his mining operations than is available to him from the claim after disposition of timber therefrom by the United States, subsequent to the location of the claim, he shall be entitled, free of charge, to be supplied with timber for such requirements from the nearest timber administered by the disposing agency which is ready for harvesting under the rules and regulations of that agency and which is substantially equivalent in kind and quantity to the timber estimated by the disposing agency to have been disposed of from the claim: Provided further, That nothing in this subchapter and sections 601 and 603 of this title shall be construed as affecting or intended to affect or in any way interfere with or modify the laws of the States which lie wholly or in part westward of the ninety-eighth meridian relating to the ownership, control, appropriation, use, and distribution of ground or surface waters within any unpatented mining claim. (c) Severance or removal of timber Except to the extent required for the mining claimant’s prospecting, mining or processing operations and uses reasonably incident thereto, or for the construction of buildings or structures in connection therewith, or to provide clearance for such operations or uses, or to the extent authorized by the United States, no claimant of any mining claim hereafter located under the mining laws of the United States shall, prior to issuance of patent therefor, sever, remove, or use any vegetative or other surface resources thereof which are subject to management or disposition by the United States under the preceding subsection (b). Any severance or removal of timber which is permitted under the exceptions of the preceding sentence, other than severance or removal to provide clearance, shall be in accordance with sound principles of forest management.

(a) President; preparation of plan and submission to Congress of report Within 1 year after December 27, 2020, the President shall submit to the Congress— (1) a program plan to implement such existing or prospective proposals and organizational structures within the executive branch as he finds necessary to carry out the provisions set forth in sections 1602 and 1603 of this title. The plan shall include program and budget proposals and organizational structures providing for the following minimum elements: (A) policy analysis and decision determination within the Executive Office of the President; (B) continuing long-range analysis of materials use to meet national security, economic, industrial and social needs; the adequacy and stability of supplies; and the industrial and economic implications of supply shortages or disruptions; (C) continuing private sector consultation in Federal materials programs; and (D) interagency coordination at the level of the President’s Cabinet; (2) recommendations for the collection, analysis, and dissemination of information concerning domestic and international long-range materials demand, supply and needs, including consideration of the establishment of a separate materials information agency patterned after the Bureau of Labor Statistics; and (3) recommendations for legislation and administrative initiatives necessary to reconcile policy conflicts and to establish programs and institutional structures necessary to achieve the goals of a national materials policy. (b) Director of Office of Science and Technology Policy; coordination, etc., activities In accordance with the provisions of the National Science and Technology Policy, Organization, and Priorities Act of 1976 (42 U.S.C. 6601 et seq.), the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy shall: (1) through the National Science and Technology Council coordinate Federal materials research and development and related activities in accordance with the policies and objectives established in this chapter; (2) place special emphasis on the long-range assessment of national materials needs related to scientific and technological concerns and the research and development, Federal and private, necessary to meet those needs; and (3) prepare an assessment of national materials needs related to scientific and technological changes over the next five years. Such assessment shall be revised on an annual basis. Where possible, the Director shall extend the assessment in 10- and 25-year increments over the whole expected lifetime of such needs and technologies. (c) Secretary of Commerce; consultative, etc., requirements; identification and assessment activities The Secretary of Commerce, in consultation with such other members of the Cabinet as may be appropriate, shall— (1) not later than 1 year after December 27, 2020, submit to the Congress a report that assesses critical materials needs and that recommends programs that would assist in meeting such needs, including an assessment of economic stockpiles; and (2) assess the adequacy and stability of the supply of materials necessary to maintain national security, economic well-being, public health, and industrial production. (d) Secretary of Defense and other Cabinet members; assessment, etc., activities The Secretary of Defense, together with such other members of the Cabinet as are deemed necessary by the President, shall prepare a report assessing critical materials needs related to national security and identifying the steps necessary to meet those needs. The report shall include an assessment of the Defense Production Act of 1950 (50 U.S.C. App. 2061 et seq.) [now 50 U.S.C. 4501 et seq.], and the Strategic and Critical Materials Stock Piling Act (50 U.S.C. App. 98 et seq.) [50 U.S.C. 98 et seq.]. Such report shall be made available to the Congress within 1 year after December 27, 2020, and shall be revised periodically as deemed necessary. (e) Secretary of the Interior; initiation ...