This bill amends the Geothermal Steam Act of 1970 to increase the frequency of federally conducted lease sales from every two years to annually. It also adds replacement sales to ensure a canceled or delayed sale occurs within the same calendar year and requires the Secretary of the Interior to offer all nominated parcels eligible for geothermal development under the state's resource management plan in effect for the state.
In addition, the bill adds a new deadline regime for geothermal drilling permits: not later than 30 days after receiving an application, the Secretary must determine completeness and notify the applicant whether information is missing; if the application is complete, the final decision must be issued within 30 days. The combined changes are intended to accelerate geothermal development by reducing lag between nomination, sale, and permitting, while tying activity to state planning processes.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill shifts lease sales to annual cycles, adds replacement sales for-cancelled/delayed sales, and requires offering all nominated parcels eligible under state resource management plans when conducting sales. It also adds a deadlines regime for geothermal drilling permits: 30 days to determine completeness, and 30 days to issue a final decision if complete.
Who It Affects
The changes affect the Department of the Interior’s geothermal leasing workflow, geothermal permit applicants, developers with nominated parcels, and state resource management offices implementing the relevant plans.
Why It Matters
By increasing leasing cadence and tightening permit timelines, the bill aims to speed geothermal development and provide greater predictability for project developers and investors, while demanding closer alignment with state planning standards.
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What This Bill Actually Does
The CLEAN Act makes three core changes to how the federal government handles geothermal leasing and permitting. First, it moves lease sales from a biennial schedule to an annual schedule and adds a replacement-sale mechanism: if a lease sale is canceled or delayed, the Secretary of the Interior must conduct a replacement sale within the same year.
Second, in states described in the statutory provision, the Secretary must offer all nominated parcels eligible for geothermal development and utilization under that state’s resource management plan. Third, the Act introduces a new deadline regime for geothermal drilling permits: within 30 days of receiving an application, the Secretary must notify the applicant whether the application is complete or what information is still needed; if complete, the Secretary must issue a final decision within 30 days.
Taken together, these provisions are intended to reduce the time from nomination to development and to improve predictability for developers and financiers, while anchoring leasing activity in established state planning documents.
From a programmatic perspective, the changes will require the Interior Department to cadence-plot more frequent lease events and manage more replacement sales within a single year. The permit-decision timeline adds a concrete processing window that can help applicants forecast project milestones but also increases the pressure on agency staff to process more applications within tight timeframes.
The alignment with state resource management plans is designed to ensure that nominated parcels fit within state-planned geothermal development, potentially smoothing siting and environmental coordination, but it also introduces state-plan variability into federal leasing outcomes.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The bill changes the lease-sale cadence from biennial to annual.
It adds replacement sales to occur in the same year when a sale is canceled or delayed.
In certain states, the Secretary must offer all nominated parcels eligible for geothermal development under the state's resource management plan.
A new deadline regime requires permit completeness notices within 30 days and final permit decisions within 30 days of completeness.
Changes are implemented through amendments to the Geothermal Steam Act of 1970, including a new subsection (h) for permit deadlines.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Annual leasing cadence; replacement and eligibility
The bill redesignates the leasing cadence by replacing the existing 2-year interval with an annual schedule and adds a new replacement-sale provision. If a lease sale is canceled or delayed, a replacement sale must be conducted within the same year. Additionally, in conducting a lease sale in a State described in the applicable paragraph, the Secretary must offer all nominated parcels eligible for geothermal development and utilization under the State’s resource management plan in effect at that time.
Replacement sales and state-plan alignment
This section authorizes replacement sales for equitably addressing cancellations or delays and requires the Secretary to align parcel offerings with the current state resource management plan, ensuring that eligible parcels are made available to developers in line with state-led planning criteria.
Deadlines for geothermal drilling permit decisions
A new subsection adds a timebound process for drilling permits. The Secretary must notify applicants within 30 days after receiving an application whether the application is complete or information is missing. If the application is complete, the Secretary must issue a final decision no later than 30 days after confirming completeness.
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Explore Energy in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Geothermal developers with nominated parcels, who gain faster access to lease sales and clearer timelines for parcel availability.
- Large-scale project developers and their financiers, who benefit from more predictable project planning and funding timetables.
- State resource management agencies, which gain alignment with federal leasing cycles through adherence to state planning documents.
- Utility-scale energy buyers seeking expedited geothermal power projects, who gain faster procurement pathways.
Who Bears the Cost
- The Interior Department’s Geothermal Leasing Program, which must manage increased leasing activity and replacement sales within the same year.
- Smaller or resource-constrained geothermal operators, who may face tighter timelines and greater competition for parcels.
- State agencies coordinating with federal leasing, which may need to adjust planning processes to reflect annualized leasing cycles.
- Contractors and consultants supporting more frequent permit and leasing processing, which could raise administrative costs and workload.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central dilemma is speed versus thoroughness: can the federal geothermal program sustainably accelerate leases and permits while maintaining robust planning, environmental safeguards, and public participation across jurisdictions?
The bill’s acceleration of leasing and permitting timelines raises tensions between speed and deliberation. More frequent lease sales increase the volume of parcels available for development, which can raise competitive pressure and potential siting conflicts in a shorter planning horizon.
The requirement to offer all nominated parcels under each state’s resource management plan creates a closer, perhaps tighter, coupling between federal leasing outcomes and state-level planning, which could constrain federal discretion if state plans are more conservative or slower to update. The new permit-deadline regime improves predictability for applicants, but it also concentrates administrative demand on the Interior Department’s permitting offices, which must absorb a higher throughput and resolve completeness issues swiftly.
Unresolved questions remain about how these timelines interact with environmental reviews, public notice requirements, and potential legal challenges under existing environmental and land-use statutes.
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