Senate committee advances five-year renewal of federal program mapping Alaska's geology

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Sept. 30 advanced a five-year renewal of a federal program that maps what lies beneath Alaska's ground. The program's current funding ran through the 2026 federal fiscal year, which ended that same day.

The program is the Earth Mapping Resources Initiative, known as Earth MRI, run by the U.S. Geological Survey. It produces public geologic data that companies and agencies use to judge where critical minerals and geothermal heat might be found. Since its 2019 launch, it has "reduced exploration risk, and lowered costs by making foundational geologic information publicly available," according to a release from Sen. Lisa Murkowski's office.

The committee approved a rewritten version of the bill, S. 4870, which now goes to the full Senate.

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act gave the program $320 million, or $64 million a year, for fiscal years 2022 through 2026, according to a federal oversight report. The bill would extend the program from 2027 through 2031 at similar levels. It would add geologic hydrogen, naturally occurring underground hydrogen, to the program's scope, and require that data from the USGS 3D Hydrography Program be folded into Earth MRI's.

"It's a big deal in my state when we see the very significant gaps in geologic data," Murkowski said at the committee's meeting.

At a July 21 House subcommittee hearing on the House version, H.R. 9640, Ruarri Day-Stirrat, president of the Association of American State Geologists, said in written testimony that the program "almost doubled preexisting publicly available geophysical data" in Alaska. "The work is far, far from complete," he said. The Interior Department, which oversees USGS, told the panel it "supports H.R. 9640 and the reauthorization of Earth MRI."

A June release from Murkowski and Sen. John Hickenlooper of Colorado, the bill's cosponsor, credited the program with contributing to a doubling of Alaska mineral exploration spending and a 14 percent increase in staked mining claims in the Interior. Those figures come from the sponsors.

The sponsors' release names no opposition.