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Hardrock Mining and Reclamation Act of 2014
The Hardrock Mining and Reclamation Act of 2014 was introduced by Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Oregon) on July 10, 2014. Rep. Peter DeFazio stated "For over 140 years, the federal government has allowed mining companies to extract hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of valuable publicly owned minerals from our public lands without paying American taxpayers a single dime." This bill was built off of the previous Hardrock Mining and Reclamation Act of 2007.

The proposed bill would have prohibited patent grants from all mining or millsites claimed after September 30, 1994. The bill would have established a maintenance fee and a 4% to 8% royalty of the gross incomes of all unpatented mining or millsite claims.

The bill would have also assigned protections to lands, such as areas of wilderness study and areas of environmental concern, that would no longer be open to mining and millsite claims. In addition, the bill would have created the Hardrock Minerals Fund, which would require a payment to the Secretary of the Interior of 7 cents per ton of displaced mining material, paid for by all operators of a hardrock mining site. These funds would then be allocated to land and water resources that were impacted negatively by mining operations.

The proposed bill, however, died at the end of the113th Congress in January 2015.

Hardrock Mining Reform and Reclamation Act of 2015
The Hardrock Mining Reform and Reclamation Act of 2015 was introduced to the 114th Congress by Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Arizona) on February 13, 2015. This proposed bill was built off of the Hardrock Mining and Reclamation Act of 2014. The bill died in committee.

Hardrock Mining and Reclamation Act of 2015
The Hardrock Mining and Reclamation Act of 2015 was introduced to the 114th Congress by Sen. Tom Udall (D-New Mexico) on November 5, 2015.

Sen. Tom Udall stated that the Gold King Mine spill of 2015, which spilled 3 million gallons of acid wastewater into the Animas River watershed, was a key factor in introducing the bill. Sen. Udall introduced the bill as a way to make mine operators responsible for mine spills and stated "We cannot wait for more disasters like the Gold King mine spill for us to act. We cannot continue to do nothing while thousands of abandoned hardrock mines drain toxic metals into our rivers, water supplies, and our drinking water each and every day."

The proposed bill, built upon the Hardrock Mining Reform and Reclamation Act of 2015, included a specified maintenance fee of all unpatented claims, with a $150 fee for each claim along with a $50 location fee. The bill adjusted the percentage of royalties collected from mining production to between 2% and 5% and stated that all mining operators are required to present to the Secretary of the Interior the financial ability to pay for any damages to any land and water resources affected by mining. The bill proposed the establishment of the Hardrock Minerals Reclamation Fund and a requirement that all mining operators pay a fee of 0.6% to 2% of the annual production value of each mine. The bill died in the 114th Congress.

Hardrock Mining and Reclamation Act of 2017
The Hardrock Mining and Reclamation Act of 2017 was introduced by Sen. Tom Udall (D-New Mexico) on September 9, 2017.

The bill proposed builds off of the Hardrock Mining and Reclamation Act of 2015 and requires the Secretary of the Interior to set the percentage of royalties to be collected from mining productions. The bill died in the 115th Congress.