Mining Schools Act Creates 10 New Grants for Critical Mineral Training, But Repeals Old Law and Skips Funding

The new Mining Schools Act of 2025 is setting up a competitive grant program aimed squarely at boosting domestic mining education. The goal? To make sure we have enough skilled people to find, process, and recycle the critical minerals—think rare earth elements—needed for everything from electric vehicle batteries to advanced defense tech. The Secretary of Energy, working with the Secretary of the Interior, is tasked with establishing this program to award grants to specialized “mining schools,” which includes accredited programs in mining, metallurgy, or mineral engineering, or certain geology departments in states with heavy mining activity (at least $2 billion in GDP from mining in 2021).

The New Curriculum: Extraction Meets Green Tech

This isn't just about digging holes; the bill is very specific about where the money needs to go. Grant recipients—limited to a maximum of 10 schools per year, spread across different geographic regions—must use the funds to recruit students and improve programs focusing on things like the efficient extraction of critical minerals, developing low-impact mining techniques, and, importantly, recycling resources from old mine waste. Essentially, if a school gets one of these grants, they have to train professionals who can secure our supply chains while also cleaning up the industry's environmental footprint. This is a direct response to concerns about relying on foreign sources for essential materials, aiming to increase domestic production and recycling.

To help guide these decisions, the bill creates a Mining Professional Development Advisory Board made up of six members: three from the mining profession/industry and three from academic training programs. This Board will evaluate applications and recommend grant amounts to the Secretary of Energy. While the Secretary must consider the Board’s advice, they can reject it, but if they do, they have to post a written justification on the Department of Energy website within 15 days. For the average person, this structure means that industry experts will have a huge say in how the next generation of mining professionals is trained.

The Trade-Off: An Old Law Gets Axed

Here’s where things get tricky. While the Act creates this shiny new grant program, it simultaneously repeals the entire Mining and Mineral Resources Research Institute Act of 1984. That 1984 law established a network of research institutes across the country, creating a foundational structure for mining research and development. By completely wiping that off the books (Section 3), the new Act is essentially tearing down the existing infrastructure before the new one is even fully functional. If you’re an academic or researcher relying on that older framework, this is a major disruption, creating a gap in institutional support for mining research.

The Biggest Catch: Funding Is a Maybe

Perhaps the most crucial detail for anyone interested in the real-world impact is found in Section 4: No additional funds authorized. This means that while Congress has authorized the creation of the grant program, the Advisory Board, and the new educational requirements, they haven't actually allocated any money to pay for it. The entire program is subject to the “availability of appropriations made in advance.” Think of it like a company announcing a massive new initiative but then telling the department head they have to wait until next quarter to see if they get a budget. For the schools hoping to use these grants to modernize their programs and for the industry waiting for new talent, the program is currently just a blueprint until Congress passes a separate spending bill to fund it. Without that follow-up appropriation, the Mining Schools Act of 2025 remains a great idea on paper, but nothing more.