By: Thane Zeeh
Nearly one-third of the 1.8-billion-acre American landscape is currently held in fee by the Federal Government; this ownership exists primarily as a massive sprawl across Alaska and the Greater West.[1] Hidden in the underground beneath this land sits an array of valuable resources in the form of energy minerals such as coal, oil shale, oil, as well as gas and soft-rock minerals such as phosphate, potassium, sodium, sulfur, and native asphalt on onshore public land.[2]
To facilitate the development and extraction of these valuable resources, over 100 years ago Congress enacted the Mineral Leasing Act of 1920, establishing a framework that has governed federal subsurface rights for over a century.[3] Of its many effects, the Mineral Leasing Act permits the Federal Government to retain the ownership of the mineral deposit found in certain Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Federal Land but grants Profit à Prendre[4] for the mineral values to a private for a specified amount of time while receiving a royalty on the occurring production.[5] The government conducts these operations through the allocation of leases by BLM through a competitive bidding scheme where “the highest bidder” must also pay at least 12.5% royalty for such extractions.[6]
Now, finding passage under the Trump Administration, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025 (One Big Beautiful Bill) seeks to alter the Mineral Leasing Act in three-distinct ways found in Section 4.02, 4.03, and 4.04 of The One Big Beautiful Bill.[7] Despite their differences, in general, this legislation represents a stark departure from the historical application of the Mineral Leasing Act by restricting the historically provided broad discretion to pause or cancel with strict quotas and mandates.[8]
For instance, under Section 4.02, The One Big Beautiful Bill restores the Mineral Leasing Act to its prior status by repealing royalty rate increases and noncompetitive leasing bans enacted under Inflation Reeducation Act of 2022.[9] The One Big Beautiful Bill also reforms Section 17 of the Mineral Leasing Act to mandate that federal lands believed to contain oil or gas deposits be available for leasing within 18 months of an expression of interest,[10] while the Secretary of the Interior is now required to conduct at least four oil and gas lease sales annually in nine designated western states and Alaska.[11]
Section 4.03 of the One Big Beautiful Bill moreover, intensifies federal coal extraction by amending Section 7(a) of the Mineral Leasing Act regarding royalty rates.[12] These amended rates apply post-hoc to any lease issued under Section 2 of the Mineral Leasing Act that remains active.[13] Additionally, One Big Beautiful Bill provides a credit to lessees for the difference between advance royalties paid under the old law prior to the bill.[14] The Secretary is also compelled to make 4,000,000 additional acres of federal land available for coal leasing, notwithstanding prior restrictions under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act.[15]
Finally, Section 4.04 briefly touches on the Mineral Leasing Act by maintaining a financial connection to the Mineral Leasing Act by applying its established revenue-sharing standards to new renewable energy projects.[16]
While mentioned only briefly in the grand scale of the One Big Beautiful Bill, the amendments to the Mineral Leasing Act represent a drastic shift in the American legal landscape for public lands. By restricting historically broad discretion to pause or cancel lease sales, the One Big Beautiful Bill effectively transitions federal land management from a policy of conservation-based flexibility to one of production output mandates.
[1] Gary A. Campbell, Mineral Leasing Act of 1920, EBSCO Knowledge Advantage (2025), https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/law/mineral-leasing-act-1920; History of the BLM: Yesterday and Today, Bureau of Land Mgmt., https://web.archive.org/web/20141127214504/http://www.blm.gov/ca/st/en/info/about_blm/history.print.html (last visited Feb. 19, 2026).
[2] Gary A. Campbell, Mineral Leasing Act of 1920, EBSCO Knowledge Advantage (2025), https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/law/mineral-leasing-act-1920.
[3] Id.
[4] Will Chen, Profit à Prendre, LAWPROF (2026), https://lawprof.co/property-law/legal-definitions/profit-a-prendre/ (last visited Feb. 19, 2026) (defining a profit à prendre as a right to take products of nature, such as minerals or timber, from another’s land).
[5] Gary A. Campbell, Mineral Leasing Act of 1920, EBSCO Knowledge Advantage (2025), https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/law/mineral-leasing-act-1920.
[6] Id.; History of the BLM: Yesterday and Today, Bureau of Land Mgmt., https://web.archive.org/web/20141127214504/http://www.blm.gov/ca/st/en/info/about_blm/history.print.html (last visited Feb. 19, 2026).
[7] One Big Beautiful Bill Act (2025): An Analysis §§ 4.02–4.04.
[8] 30 U.S.C. § 226, amended by One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Pub. L. No. 119-21, § 50102(b) (2025).
[9] One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025, Pub. L. No. 119-21, § 50101, 139 Stat. 145 (2025); Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, Pub. L. No. 117-169, 136 Stat. d1818 (2022).
[10] 30 U.S.C. § 226, amended by Pub. L. No. 119-21, § 50101(d) (2025).
[11] One Big Beautiful Bill Act (2025): An Analysis § 4.02 (Matthew Bender & Co. ed., LexisNexis 2025).
[12] One Big Beautiful Bill Act (2025): An Analysis § 4.03 (Matthew Bender & Co. ed., LexisNexis 2025); citing 30 U.S.C. § 207(a), amended by One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Pub. L. No. 119-21, § 50202(a) (2025).
[13] Id.
[14] Id.
[15] Id.
[16] One Big Beautiful Bill Act (2025): An Analysis § 4.04 (Matthew Bender & Co. ed., LexisNexis 2025) (providing 25% of renewable energy revenue is paid to the state and 25% to the county where the project is located);