Introduced in House text (IH) · Stauber · referred to House Natural Resources on February 5, 2025
Superior National Forest Restoration Act of 2025 (H.R. 978)
Registered context series — forecast regardless of this bill
These series are tracked because the bill made them worth watching. They are not resolutions of any bill metric; each entry states what the series is not.
USFS Minnesota obligations, FY2026
In the first registered-query snapshot after FY2026 close, what will USAspending API v2 search/spending_over_time report as aggregated_amount for prime award transactions filtered to Forest Service awarding subagency, Minnesota place of performance, fiscal_year FY2026, grouped by fiscal_year, not seasonally adjusted, converted to USD millions?
Minnesota-wide award-transaction context only, not Superior National Forest obligations or activity confined to the bill's covered lands; not H.R. 978 implementation, mineral instruments, or deadline compliance; and no spending is attributed to or treated as caused by H.R. 978.
Provisions
Section 2(a) — Rescission
1. §2(a): rescind Public Land Order 7917
Section 2(a) — Rescission
1. §2(a): rescind Public Land Order 7917
Section 2(a) would rescind the named January 31, 2023 Bureau of Land Management order. The source identifies the order, issuing bureau, date, and three Minnesota counties, but it does not reproduce the order, quantify its coverage, or specify the complete underlying land-management regime. Rescission would change that order's legal status; it would not by itself approve a Mine Plan of Operations, issue a mineral instrument, authorize surface use, or establish that mining begins. Despite the short title, the provision requires no ecological restoration activity or environmental outcome.
Quoted from the bill ▸
“The order titled Public Land Order No. 7917 for Withdrawal of Federal Lands; Cook, Lake, and Saint Louis Counties, MN, issued by the Bureau of Land Management and dated January 31, 2023, is hereby rescinded.”
Countersignable goals
Likely effects — shown regardless of the goals
Direct statutory rescission
If enacted, the provision makes rescission of the named order the immediate legal rule rather than directing an agency to consider whether to rescind it.
Limit of the operative text
The provision removes one identified order but does not itself state the acreage or interests reopened, issue a lease, approve a mine plan, grant a surface-use permit, or guarantee exploration, development, or production.
Implementation barriers
Interior and Agriculture land-status administrators
They would have to reconcile land-status records and agency instructions with the statutory rescission, while the bill gives no transition procedure and defines the responsible Secretary differently when the term is used with respect to a National Forest System unit.
Public evaluators
The supplied text names but does not reproduce Public Land Order 7917, so its land descriptions, acreage, exceptions, and legal consequences must be recovered from a separate authoritative instrument.
Candidate outcome metrics
An enacted public law and any Bureau of Land Management Federal Register or official land-status record identifying Public Land Order 7917 as rescinded and recording the effective legal date. This would be one-time categorical evidence, not a recurring outcome series, and the bill requires no particular agency publication or public update.
Section 2(b) — Timely review
2. §2(b): 18-month Mine Plan review and six-month supplemental-review and post-approval permit clocks
Section 2(b) — Timely review
2. §2(b): 18-month Mine Plan review and six-month supplemental-review and post-approval permit clocks
For Mine Plans of Operations submitted or resubmitted during the ten years beginning on enactment, subsection (b) requires completion of all necessary environmental and regulatory reviews, including National Environmental Policy Act processes, within 18 months after submission or resubmission. It separately gives the Secretary six months after submission to review necessary supplemental environmental and regulatory reviews and requires all necessary regulatory and environmental permits within six months after plan approval. The bill does not define a complete submission, tolling, completion of review, plan approval, permit completeness, denial, or treatment of another agency's legally required decision.
Quoted from the bill ▸
“not later than 18 months after the date on which such Mine Plan of Operations is submitted or resubmitted”; “all necessary supplemental environmental and regulatory reviews shall be reviewed by the Secretary not later than 6 months after the date on which such supplemental Mine Plan of Operations is submitted”; and “all necessary regulatory and environmental permits shall be issued not later than 6 months after the Mine Plan of Operations is approved.”
Countersignable goals
Likely effects — shown regardless of the goals
Deadline-bound review
The provision imposes elapsed-time requirements tied to case-specific submission or resubmission dates for plans entering during the ten-year eligibility window while expressly retaining necessary environmental and regulatory review, including National Environmental Policy Act processes.
Review versus approval
The 18-month clause governs completion of necessary reviews, while the separate permit clock begins only after a Mine Plan is approved; the text does not supply an independent approval deadline or say that every reviewed plan must be approved.
Mandatory post-approval issuance
Once a covered plan is approved, the text says all necessary regulatory and environmental permits shall be issued within six months, but it does not describe how that command interacts with permit-specific findings, incomplete applications, or responsibilities assigned to other authorities.
Queue and capacity pressure
Fixed clocks can make covered cases more predictable and faster, but without new staffing or appropriations they may also require reprioritizing agency work or compressing consultation and document preparation.
Implementation barriers
Responsible Federal agencies
They must identify every necessary review and permit, coordinate National Environmental Policy Act and other regulatory processes, and determine which Secretary or agency owns each action despite the bill's Interior-versus-Agriculture definition.
Applicants and reviewing agencies
They lack statutory rules for completeness, pauses, withdrawals, material amendments, resubmissions, deficient supplemental material, or the event that establishes completion, making the start and end of each clock contestable.
Agency program managers
They must track ten years of rolling case cohorts and meet the new deadlines without an authorization of appropriations, staffing plan, triage rule, public docket requirement, missed-deadline remedy, or instruction for resolving conflicts with other legal prerequisites.
Candidate outcome metrics
Share of an authoritative, auditable mature cohort of covered submissions or resubmissions for which official records show that all necessary environmental and regulatory reviews were completed no later than 18 months after the authoritative submission date. The bill identifies no consolidated recurring official product, fixed denominator, or required public docket for those dates.
Share of an authoritative, auditable mature cohort of covered supplemental submissions for which official records show that all necessary supplemental environmental and regulatory reviews were completed no later than six months after the authoritative submission date. The bill defines neither a public cohort nor how to score incomplete, amended, or disputed submissions.
Share of an authoritative, auditable mature cohort of approved covered Mine Plans for which official records show that all necessary regulatory and environmental permits were issued no later than six months after the authoritative approval date. The bill requires no public roster linking approvals to every necessary permit and does not define how to treat permits controlled by another authority.
Conditional forecast sketches
P(a covered Mine Plan's necessary reviews are completed by S + 18 months | H.R. 978 is enacted and an authoritative submission or resubmission date S is observable). This is a case-level triggered event, not a currently registered recurring series.
P(a covered supplemental review is completed by U + 6 months | H.R. 978 is enacted and an authoritative supplemental-submission date U is observable). A resolution rule would need to address incomplete, amended, withdrawn, and disputed submissions.
P(all necessary permits for a covered Mine Plan are issued by A + 6 months | H.R. 978 is enacted and an authoritative plan-approval date A and complete permit set are observable). A resolution rule would need to identify every necessary permit and responsible authority.
Sections 2(c)–(f) — Mineral instruments and surface use
3. §§2(c)–(f): restore canceled instruments, grant qualifying rejected preference leases, limit judicial review, and authorize related surface use
Sections 2(c)–(f) — Mineral instruments and surface use
3. §§2(c)–(f): restore canceled instruments, grant qualifying rejected preference leases, limit judicial review, and authorize related surface use
Subsection (c) requires reissuance of every covered mineral lease, preference right lease, and prospecting permit canceled from January 31, 2021 through enactment. Prospecting permits retain their initial terms; mineral and preference right leases receive a 20-year initial term beginning on enactment, a nondiscretionary right to five subsequent ten-year renewals, and a right to reasonable rental and royalty adjustments at renewal. Instruments issued under subsection (c)(1) are excluded from judicial review. Subsection (d) separately requires, within five days after enactment, grants of qualifying preference right lease applications rejected after January 31, 2021 that received a preliminary valuable deposit determination. Subsection (e) permits, but does not require, surface-land permits connected with those subsection (d) leases. Subsection (f) defines Secretary as Interior, or Agriculture when the term is used with respect to a National Forest System unit.
Quoted from the bill ▸
“The Secretary shall issue each mineral lease, preference right lease, and prospecting permit canceled by the Secretary relating to lands within Superior National Forest during the period beginning on January 31, 2021, and ending on the date of the enactment of this section.”; “A lease or permit issued under paragraph (1) is not subject to judicial review.”; “Notwithstanding any other provision of law, not later than 5 days after the date of the enactment of this section, the Secretary shall grant preference right leases for any preference right lease applications that were rejected after January 31, 2021, and prior to the date of the enactment of this section and have received a notice of preliminary valuable deposit determination.”; and “With respect to lands subject to a lease pursuant to subsection (d), the Secretary, in consultation with the Secretary of Agriculture, may issue permits for the use of surface lands not included in the lease for purposes connected with, and reasonably necessary to, the exploration, development, and use of the deposits covered by the lease.”
Countersignable goals
Likely effects — shown regardless of the goals
Mandatory cohort restoration
The word “shall” makes issuance mandatory for every instrument in the defined cancellation cohort rather than authorizing case-by-case reconsideration, although the bill supplies no inventory or completion deadline.
Long-duration lease rights
A covered mineral or preference right lease receives an initial 20-year term beginning on enactment and a nondiscretionary right to five later ten-year renewals, creating potential statutory tenure of up to 70 years while preserving reasonable rental and royalty adjustments at renewal.
Narrow judicial-review exclusion
Subsection (c)(2) bars judicial review of a lease or permit issued under subsection (c)(1). Its text does not expressly extend that bar to a new preference right lease issued under subsection (d) or to every later Mine Plan, environmental, permitting, or surface-use decision.
Five-day compulsory grant
For rejected applications in the defined date window that received a preliminary valuable deposit determination, subsection (d) requires a grant within five days after enactment rather than merely reopening the application.
Discretionary surface access
The responsible Secretary may, after consultation with Agriculture, permit use of non-lease surface lands when connected with and reasonably necessary to exploration, development, and deposit use, but the bill does not compel any such permit.
Legal access is not production
Reissued or newly granted instruments can enable exploration and development, but the bill does not itself establish that a mine is technically viable, financed, approved for operation, constructed, or producing minerals.
Implementation barriers
Interior and Agriculture
The agencies must allocate responsibility for mineral instruments and National Forest System surface lands under a Secretary definition that points generally to Interior but points to Agriculture when the term concerns a National Forest System unit.
Federal mineral-record administrators
They must reconstruct the complete cancellation and rejected-application cohorts, confirm preliminary valuable deposit determinations, recover original prospecting-permit conditions, and reconcile same-terms reissuance with the bill's modified lease terms without a bill-supplied roster.
The Secretary handling subsection (d) grants
The five-day deadline leaves little time to verify eligibility, prepare instruments, resolve ownership or assignment changes, calculate terms, and complete any necessary interagency coordination.
Surface-land administrators and lessees
Any surface permit remains discretionary and requires an assessment that off-lease use is connected with and reasonably necessary to the covered deposit, but the bill supplies no application procedure, decision deadline, or review standard.
Candidate outcome metrics
An authoritative fixed cohort of mineral leases, preference right leases, and prospecting permits canceled during the statutory window, matched to official reissuance records and the terms applied to each instrument. The bill requires no public cohort list or completion deadline, so a numerator, denominator, and resolution date cannot be fixed from the supplied text.
For an authoritative cohort of rejected applications that received a preliminary valuable deposit determination, official grant dates and the share granted no later than five days after enactment. The bill does not require public disclosure of the qualifying cohort or define treatment of disputed eligibility.
Official case records showing whether the Secretary issued a subsection (e) permit for non-lease surface lands connected with and reasonably necessary to a subsection (d) lease, plus the count or share of an authoritative eligible-lease cohort receiving such a permit by a fixed horizon. The authority is discretionary, and the bill creates no public cohort, consolidated recurring release, decision deadline, or target for the number issued.
Conditional forecast sketches
P(all instruments in an authoritative §2(c)(1) cancellation cohort are reissued on the specified terms by horizon t | H.R. 978 is enacted). The bill supplies no deadline, required public cohort, or fixed resolution date for this mandatory act.
P(all applications in an authoritative §2(d) qualifying cohort are granted by E + 5 days | H.R. 978 is enacted on date E). A resolver would need official evidence defining the cohort and grant dates before this could become a forecast cell.