To authorize the Secretary of the Interior to retire coal preference right lease applications for which the Secretary has made an affirmative commercial quantities determination, and for other…

(This measure has not been amended since it was introduced. The expanded summary of that version is repeated here.)

(Sec. 1) This bill authorizes the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to provide bidding credits for a coal preference right lease applicant to acquire federal mineral rights if such applicant agrees to relinquish its rights to an existing coal lease on federal land. Bidding credits, which are fully transferable, are assigned a dollar value and can be used in lieu of cash to make certain payments to the federal government. The dollar value should be equal to the estimated fair market value of the existing lease being relinquished.

The BLM is required to provide payments, equal to 50% value of any bidding credit, to any state where federal mineral rights are being acquired through the use of bidding credits. Such payments are required to be derived from revenues obtained under federal mineral leases.

A bidding credit terminates five years from its date of issue, not counting any period in which exercise of the bidding credit is precluded by law or suspension of the federal coal leasing program.