This article is part of our President’s FY2025 Budget Request Coverage. Visit our Rolling Analysis Page for more.

The FY25 budget request includes an additional $3 million to expedite domestic mining permitting and environmental analyses, in recognition of “a significant increase in demand for responsibly sourced critical minerals that power everything from consumer electronics to electric vehicle batteries.” This 3 million dollar increase will be used to hire additional staff to increase capacity to approve mining plans.

Unfortunately, nowhere in the budget do we see an indication that mining operations, particularly those for mining precious metals like gold and silver, will be assessed a royalty like coal, oil and gas, and other resources extracted on federal lands.

Two years ago, the President’s FY23 budget release established an Interagency Working Group (IWG) to review hardrock mining permitting in recognition of the 150th anniversary of the Mining Law of 1872. As part of the review effort, the Biden Administration released their principles for Domestic Mining Reform, which included adopting a fair royalty to benefit taxpayers, an item that has long been on our budget wish list. The IWG also made similar recommendations. However, neither the budget request for this year or last included a royalty on hardrock minerals acquired on federal lands.

Mining companies are not required to pay a royalty to taxpayers from the sale of publicly owned hardrock minerals like gold, silver, and copper extracted from federal lands. In fact, hardrock mining operations are still largely governed by the 1872 Mining Law. It’s high time we fix this hardrock heist.