# Plain Language Summary: Mining Schools Act of 2025

This bill creates a new federal grant program to help colleges and universities strengthen their mining education programs. The Department of Energy will give out up to 10 grants each year to schools that teach mining engineering, geology, metallurgy, and related fields. The money is meant to help these schools recruit more students and improve their programs so the country has enough trained mining professionals to meet future energy and mineral needs.

The grants can be used for a wide range of purposes related to mining education and technology. Schools can use the money to attract students, develop new courses, and support research in areas like extracting critical minerals (materials essential for batteries and electronics), cleaning up abandoned mine sites, reducing environmental damage from mining, and recycling minerals. The bill also emphasizes finding ways to reduce America's dependence on foreign mineral supplies by developing better domestic mining and processing technology. Schools can focus on region-specific mining challenges since different parts of the country have different geology and mineral deposits.

To oversee this program, the bill creates an advisory board made up of six people—three who work in the mining industry and three who teach mining-related subjects at universities. This board will review grant applications, recommend which schools should receive funding, and suggest how much money each school should get. The Department of Energy doesn't have to follow the board's recommendations, but it must explain in writing why if it rejects them. The bill also repeals an older mining education law from 1984 that it's replacing. Importantly, this bill doesn't authorize any new money—it just sets up the program structure, so Congress will need to actually appropriate funds for it to work.