National Parks Open for Mining? BLM Paves Way for Mineral Rights Claims on Public Land

Yahoo

23-05-2025

The Trump administration wants to open National Parks to mining, and it might have a legal avenue to move forward. On April 8, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) announced that an Australian mining company, Dateline Resources, LTG, had been given the go-ahead to continue operating an unauthorized mine in the Mojave National Preserve. The National Park System (NPS) told the LA Times that it has not received or approved any plan for this operation, called Colosseum Mine, which may be the first of more to come.
Records obtained by PEER through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request revealed that this Mojave mine is just one of 1,067 mining claims existing within the NPS. The Mining in the Parks Act of 1976 prohibited new mining claims from being legally filed on any NPS property. But most of these claims predate that law.
In the case of Colosseum Mine, the permissions were originally approved by the BLM, but were revoked in 1994 when the land became a National Landmark and fell under NPS jurisdiction.
Mining claims grant individuals or groups the right to explore for and extract minerals from a specific area. Legal mining claims establish exclusive rights to the resources contained within them. Now, it seems, mining companies like Dateline Resources are targeting these grandfathered claims to tap into.
'The almost forgotten mining legacy on what are now national park lands may leap back to life in a national drive to extract strategic minerals,' PEER Executive Director Tim Whitehouse said in the press release. 'The prospects for mining in national parks will not be quickly or inexpensively diminished.'
The records PEER acquired indicate that the existing mining claims are spread out across 15 different areas of the national park system and exist within all but four western states — Oregon, Idaho, Utah, and New Mexico.
PEER said that the Pacific West region has more of these claims than any other area, with 645, followed by the Alaska region with 402. The Mojave National Preserve in southern California alone, where Dateline Resources is operating Colosseum Mine, contains 422 claims.
Of the 1,067 claims, 60% are patented, and 40% are unpatented. Patented claims grant the claimant full ownership of the land and its mineral rights. Unpatented claims only allow the claimant to extract minerals, but do not grant any ownership over the surface area.
The situation in Mojave stems from an executive order signed by Donald Trump in March 2025 directing the Secretary of the Interior, Doug Burgum, and his department to increase American mineral production. Following that order, in April, BLM gave Dateline Resources the green light to move forward with its operations.
Mojave National Preserve is part of the national park system, and according to PEER, BLM has no authority over it or the mining claims within it. However, sweeping layoffs by the Trump administration leave little to stand in the way of these orders.
'Since there is currently no National Park Service Director, or even a nominee, there is likely no official parks representative at the table urging protection of park resources,' Whitehouse said. 'What is now unfolding at this one mine in Mojave may be repeated several hundred more times in the coming days.'
In a press release announcing the decision, the BLM defended the move as an investment in the country's future energy independence.
'The resumption of mining at Colosseum Mine, America's second rare earth elements mine, supports efforts to bolster America's capacity to produce the critical materials needed to manufacture the technologies to power our future. For too long, the United States has depended on foreign adversaries like China for rare earth elements for technologies that are vital to our national security,' the Bureau said.
Dateline Resources claims that it has the right to operate Colloseum Mine under a plan its previous operators submitted to the BLM in 1985. However, after the Mojave National Preserve was established in 1994, oversight was transferred from BLM to NPS, which ended and supplanted that mining plan in 1995.
Dateline Resources took over the mine in 2021 in hopes of extracting gold and rare earth minerals from the site. Since then, records obtained through a FOIA by the National Parks Conservation Association revealed a years-long dispute over the operation with NPS. Dateline Resources has been fined for damages to the area and unauthorized roadwork. It has also repeatedly been told to halt operations endangering protected species.
In 2023, NPS official Frank Lands explicitly ordered the mine to cease and desist any activities other than water quality monitoring. Now it has been given full permission by the BLM to resume its operation.
'Mining is one of the most destructive land-based activities,' Jeff Ruch, legal counsel for PEER, told GearJunkie. '[It] degrades soil, vegetation, and water, and carries with it the prospect of significant toxic contamination.'
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