
Rory Day-Stirrat
100:30 - 101:05
"46 States have participated and Puerto Rico. Each state is providing access or work in the program at the levels that they're available to. My state, the state of Oregon, we are significantly involved in Earth MRI, we have a significant mineral endowment which we haven't fully investigated, and that's true across most states. So it's a very effective model where the USGS provides the framework and the states enact on that framework."
“46 States have participated and Puerto Rico. Each state is providing access or work in the program at the levels that they're available to. My state, the state of Oregon, we are significantly involved in Earth MRI, we have a significant mineral endowment which we haven't fully investigated, and that's true across most states. So it's a very effective model where the USGS provides the framework and the states enact on that framework.”
The program is, what, 6 years old? 46 States have participated and Puerto Rico. Each state is providing access or work in the program at the levels that they're available to. My state, the state of Oregon, we are significantly involved in Earth MRI, we have a significant mineral endowment which we haven't fully investigated, and that's true across most states. So it's a very effective model where the USGS provides the framework and the states enact on that framework.
The federal geological mapping program that nearly doubled Alaska's publicly available subsurface data expires at year end. Two House bills heard Tuesday would reauthorize it through 2031 and layer quantum gravity sensing onto the effort, with Alaska's unmapped interior at the center of the case for both.

The House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources heard testimony Tuesday on a bipartisan bill that would cut the FAST-41 permitting threshold from $200 million to $50 million, potentially opening the program to broadband, water, and small energy projects that rural and tribal communities depend on, but a former council director warned the bill cannot compel agencies to act in good faith.
