Locating, Recording, and Maintaining Mining Claims or Sites

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is promulgating this final rule to amend regulations on locating, recording, and maintaining mining claims or sites. In this rule, BLM amends its regulations to respond to a recent law extending until September 30, 2003, the provisions that require claimants to pay location and annual maintenance fees for unpatented mining claims or sites, and allow qualified "small miners" to seek a waiver from the annual maintenance fee. BLM has collected these fees and provided for waivers under the existing regulations based on previous laws, the most recent of which expired on September 30, 2001. The final rule is necessary to describe and publicize the statutory extension of the fee requirement, and to remove conflicts between the current regulations and the new statute.