CLAIM Act Quadruples Mining Fees Near National Parks, Funnels Cash to Conservation Funds

The CLAIM Act of 2025 is shaking up one of the oldest policies on the books: how much hardrock miners pay to hold claims on federal land. If you’ve ever wondered what it costs to stake a claim under the 1872 Mining Law, the answer used to be a flat $100 per year. This bill rips up that flat rate and replaces it with a sliding scale that hits miners hardest the closer they are to protected areas like National Parks and National Monuments.

The Price of Proximity: Tiered Fees Hit Hard

Under this proposal, the annual maintenance fee for a mining claim will jump significantly, especially if you’re operating near a scenic area. The new fees range from $300 to a hefty $1,100, depending on how many miles separate the claim from a “covered area.” For instance, if a claim is located mostly within a National Park boundary, the fee spikes to $1,100 annually. If it’s between 10 and 20 miles out, the fee drops to $700. This is a clear move to create a financial disincentive for mining activity near sensitive public lands, and it could be a major financial shock for existing operations that were budgeting for the old $100 rate. The upside for miners is that paying this new maintenance fee satisfies the requirement to perform “assessment work”—the costly and time-consuming annual labor traditionally required to prove you’re still actively developing the claim.

Who Gets a Pass? The Tight Squeeze on 'Small Miners'

This bill does offer an exemption for the “small miner,” but the definition is extremely strict. To qualify, a miner must hold no more than 10 claims total and operate on less than 200 acres. Crucially, their annual gross income from mineral production must be less than $50,000, and this income test includes the income of all “related parties”—spouses, business partners, and entities with even a 10% ownership stake. This means a small family operation could lose the exemption simply because a spouse has a successful side business.

But the biggest hurdle is the requirement that the small miner must certify they will only use their claims for “casual use.” The bill defines casual use as activities that cause minimal disturbance, specifically excluding mechanized equipment, road construction, or hazardous materials. To put this in real-world terms: if you’re using a shovel and a pan, you’re probably fine. If you bring in a backhoe, a bulldozer, or even a small drill rig for exploratory work, you lose the exemption and are on the hook for the full, tiered fee. This effectively limits the exemption to hobbyists and the smallest-scale prospectors, leaving most small commercial miners—the ones who actually need the exemption to stay afloat—to pay the full, increased rate.

Where the Money Goes: Funding Conservation

If this bill is passed, it creates a significant new revenue stream, and the bill clearly dictates where that money must go. After the Department of the Interior takes a cut for administering mining laws (and potentially collecting new “user fees” to cover administrative expenses), the excess funds are split and directed toward several key programs. The largest share, 40%, goes to a program under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act for abandoned mine land reclamation. Another 20% is earmarked for the Tribal Historic Preservation Program, and 20% is distributed to the States. The remaining 20% is split between the Land and Water Conservation Fund and the National Parks and Public Land Legacy Restoration Fund. This means that if you care about cleaning up old mining sites, supporting tribal cultural preservation, or funding the maintenance backlog at National Parks, this bill creates dedicated, significant funding for those causes, paid for by the mining industry itself.