Mining on Public Lands

The second Trump administration has taken a number of actions to expand and accelerate mining on public lands.

Mining on public lands under the second Trump administration

The second Trump administration has taken a number of actions to expand and accelerate mining on public lands. These actions threaten to cut off Americans’ access to their public lands, damage wildlife habitat, and enrich private mining companies at the expense of American public land owners and the environment.

In March 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order, Immediate Measures to Increase American Mineral Production, calling on the Interior department to take a number of steps to prioritize mining on public lands, including defining “minerals” much more broadly than the U.S. Geological Survey’s official critical minerals list, and prioritizing mineral production on any public lands containing minerals under the broad definition. The Trump administration also announced the addition of several critical minerals projects to the FAST-41 expedited permitting process, and has indicated that it plans to continue to add more over time.

In April 2025, Trump signed an executive order, Reinvigorating America’s Beautiful Clean Coal Industry, declaring it a national priority to attempt to revive the domestic coal industry. Among other things, the executive order adds coal to the list of minerals under the March 2025 executive order on mineral production, making coal eligible for various forms of special treatment including prioritizing coal production on national public lands.

Together, these executive orders attempt to overhaul public land management to prioritize mineral exploration, extraction, and processing above all other uses, including recreation and conservation, despite clear instruction from Congress to balance multiple uses and manage resources sustainably. This threatens Americans’ access to public lands now and in the future, and has the potential to do lasting harm to wildlife and their habitats across the West.

Background: Mining on public lands

Mining on public lands has a long history dating back to the 1800s, before many Western states had been admitted to the Union. Different types of mining are governed by different laws depending on the material being mined:

Hardrock mining (for locatable minerals such as gold, silver, and copper) is governed by the Mining Law of 1872, a law that has remained mostly unchanged over the more than 150 years since it was passed. As originally written, the law was designed to encourage westward expansion and settlement by creating a favorable environment for mineral exploration and development. The law gives any American citizen or business the right to prospect for minerals on most federal public lands and to stake a mining claim if minerals are discovered. For a claim to be valid, the claimant must show that a valuable mineral deposit exists—defined loosely as a mineral deposit that a “prudent” person would judge to be economically viable to extract. The Mining Law applies to any national public lands unless those lands have been specifically withdrawn from mining (such as national parks and wilderness areas).
Development of fuel minerals, including oil, gas, and coal, is governed by the Mineral Leasing Act of 1920. (See our Oil and Gas Development page for more information.)

In addition to these mining-specific laws, extractive activity on national public lands is also subject to environmental protection laws, including the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Air Act, and the Clean Water Act.

Critical minerals

In recent years, mining for critical minerals and other materials important to clean energy technologies has drawn increased attention. The U.S. Geological Survey (within the Department of the Interior) maintains an official list of critical minerals, which are designated according to defined criteria laid out in the Energy Act of 2020. The USGS list is updated every three years. In addition to the USGS list, the Department of Energy also maintains a list of critical materials which includes additional minerals such as copper.

FAST-41

At the end of the first Trump administration, mining was added to the list of sectors eligible to seek expedited permitting under Title 41 of the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act, commonly known as the FAST-41 program. The Biden administration subsequently narrowed this down to critical minerals projects. In 2023, the Permitting Council, which oversees the FAST-41 program, announced the first mining project to be covered by the FAST-41 process, the South32 Hermosa project in southern Arizona.

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Mining on Public Lands