As used in Groups 3000 and 3100 of this title, the term:

(a) Gas means any fluid, either combustible or noncombustible, which is produced in a natural state from the earth and which maintains a gaseous or rarefied state at ordinary temperatures and pressure conditions.

(b) Oil means all nongaseous hydrocarbon substances other than those substances leasable as coal, oil shale or gilsonite (including all vein-type solid hydrocarbons).

(c) Secretary means the Secretary of the Interior.

(d) Director means the Director of the Bureau of Land Management.

(e) Authorized officer means any employee of the Bureau of Land Management authorized to perform the duties described in Group 3000 and 3100.

(f) Proper BLM office means the Bureau of Land Management office having jurisdiction over the lands subject to the regulations in Groups 3000 and 3100, except that all oil and gas lease offers, and assignments or transfers for lands in Alaska shall be filed in the Alaska State Office, Anchorage, Alaska.

(g) Public domain lands means lands, including mineral estates, which never left the ownership of the United States, lands which were obtained by the United States in exchange for public domain lands, lands which have reverted to the ownership of the United States through the operation of the public land laws and other lands specifically identified by the Congress as part of the public domain.

(h) Acquired lands means lands which the United States obtained by deed through purchase or gift, or through condemnation proceedings, including lands previously disposed of under the public land laws including the mining laws.

(i) Anniversary date means the same day and month in succeeding years as that on which the lease became effective.

(j) Act means the Mineral Leasing Act of 1920, as amended and supplemented (30 U.S.C. 181 et seq.).

(k) Party in interest means a party who is or will be vested with any interest under the lease as defined in paragraph (l) of this section. No one is a sole party in interest with respect to an application, offer, competitive bid or lease in which any other party has an interest;

(l) Interest means ownership in a lease or prospective lease of all or a portion of the record title, working interest, operating rights, overriding royalty, payments out of production, carried interests, net profit share or similar instrument for participation in the benefit derived from a lease. An interest may be created by direct or indirect ownership, including options. Interest does not mean stock ownership, stockholding or stock control in an application, offer, competitive bid or lease, except for purposes of acreage limitations in § 3101.2 of this title and qualifications of lessees in subpart 3102 of this title.

(m) Surface managing agency means any Federal agency outside of the Department of the Interior with jurisdiction over the surface overlying federally-owned minerals.

(n) Service means the Minerals Management Service.

(o) Bureau means the Bureau of Land Management.

Any person acquiring a lease under this chapter shall comply fully with the equal opportunity provisions of Executive Order 11246 of September 24, 1965, as amended, and the rules, regulations and relevant orders of the Secretary of Labor (41 CFR part 60 and 43 CFR part 17).

Under the provisions of 18 U.S.C. 1001, it is a crime punishable by 5 years imprisonment or a fine of up to $10,000, or both, for any person knowingly and willfully to submit or cause to be submitted to any agency of the United States any false or fraudulent statement(s) as to any matter within the agency's jurisdiction.

No member of, or delegate to, Congress, or Resident Commissioner, and no employee of the Department of the Interior, except as provided in 43 CFR part 20, shall be entitled to acquire or hold any Federal lease, or interest therein. (Officer, agent or employee of the Department—see 43 CFR part 20; Member of Congress—see R.S. 3741; 41 U.S.C. 22; 18 U.S.C. 431-433.)

Except as provided in §§ 3101.7-3(b), 3120.1-3, 3165.4, and 3427.2 of this title, any party adversely affected by a decision of the authorized officer made pursuant to the provisions of Group 3000 or Group 3100 of this title shall have a right of appeal pursuant to part 4 of this title.

No action contesting a decision of the Secretary involving any oil or gas lease, offer or application shall be maintained unless such action is commenced or taken within 90 days after the final decision of the Secretary relating to such matter.

All necessary documents shall be filed in the proper BLM office. A document shall be considered filed when it is received in the proper BLM office during regular business hours (see § 1821.2 of this title).

The granting of a permit or lease for the prospecting, development or production of deposits of any one mineral shall not preclude the issuance of other permits or leases for the same lands for deposits of other minerals with suitable stipulations for simultaneous operation, nor the allowance of applicable entries, locations or selections of leased lands with a reservation of the mineral deposits to the United States.

Where nonmineral public land disposal statutes provide that in conveyances of title all or certain minerals shall be reserved to the United States together with the right to prospect for, mine and remove the minerals under applicable law and regulations as the Secretary may prescribe, the lease or sale, and administration and management of the use of such minerals shall be accomplished under the regulations of Groups 3000 and 3100 of this title. Such mineral estates include, but are not limited to, those that have been or will be reserved under the authorities of the Small Tract Act of June 1, 1938, as amended (43 U.S.C. 682(b)) and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (43 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.).

Provisions of section 41 of the Act shall be enforced by the United States Department of Justice.

(a) Setting fees. Fees may be statutorily set fees, relatively nominal filing fees, or processing fees intended to reimburse BLM for its reasonable processing costs. For processing fees, BLM takes into account the factors in Section 304 (b) of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (FLPMA) (43 U.S.C. 1734(b)) before deciding a fee. BLM considers the factors for each type of document when the processing fee is a fixed fee and for each individual document when the fee is decided on a case-by-case basis, as explained in § 3000.11.

(b) Conditions for filing. BLM will not accept a document that you submit without the proper filing or processing fee amounts except for documents where BLM sets the fee on a case-by-case basis. Fees are not refundable except as provided for case-by-case fees in § 3000.11. BLM will keep your fixed filing or processing fee as a service charge even if we do not approve your application or you withdraw it completely or partially.

(c) Periodic adjustment. We will periodically adjust fees established in this subchapter according to change in the Implicit Price Deflator for Gross Domestic Product, which is published quarterly by the U.S. Department of Commerce. Because the fee recalculations are simply based on a mathematical formula, we will change the fees in final rules without opportunity for notice and comment.

(d) Timing of fee applicability. (1) For a document BLM receives before November 7, 2005, we will not charge a fixed fee or a case-by-case fee under this subchapter for processing that document, except for fees applicable under then-existing regulations.

(2) For a document BLM receives on or after November 7, 2005, you must include required fixed fees with documents you file, as provided in § 3000.12(a) of this chapter, and you are subject to case-by-case processing fees as provided in § 3000.11 of this chapter and under other provisions of this chapter.

(a) Fees in this subchapter are designated either as case-by-case fees or as fixed fees. The fixed fees are established in this subchapter for specified types of documents. However, if BLM decides at any time that a particular document designated for a fixed fee will have a unique processing cost, such as the preparation of an Environmental Impact Statement, we may set the fee under the case-by-case procedures in this section.

(b) For case-by-case fees, BLM measures the ongoing processing cost for each individual document and considers the factors in Section 304(b) of FLPMA on a case-by-case basis according to the following procedures:

(1) You may ask BLM's approval to do all or part of any study or other activity according to standards BLM specifies, thereby reducing BLM's costs for processing your document.

(2) Before performing any case processing, we will give you a written estimate of the proposed fee for reasonable processing costs after we consider the FLPMA Section 304(b) factors.

(3) You may comment on the proposed fee.

(4) We will then give you the final estimate of the processing fee amount after considering your comments and any BLM-approved work you will do.

(i) If we encounter higher or lower processing costs than anticipated, we will re-estimate our reasonable processing costs following the procedure in paragraphs (b)(1), (b)(2), (b)(3) and (b)(4) of this section, but we will not stop ongoing processing unless you do not pay in accordance with paragraph (b)(5) of this section.

(ii) If the fee you would pay under this paragraph (b)(4) is less than BLM's actual costs as a result of consideration of the FLPMA Section 304(b) factors, and we are not able to process your document promptly because of the unavailability of funding or other resources, you will have the option to pay BLM's actual costs to process your document. This will enable BLM to process your document sooner.

(iii) Once processing is complete, we will refund to you any money that we did not spend on processing costs.

(5)(i) We will periodically estimate what our reasonable processing costs will be for a specific period and will bill you for that period. Payment is due to BLM 30 days after you receive your bill. BLM will stop processing your document if you do not pay the bill by the date payment is due.

(ii) If a periodic payment turns out to be more or less than BLM's reasonable processing costs for the period, we will adjust the next billing accordingly or make a refund. Do not deduct any amount from a payment without our prior written approval.

(6) You must pay the entire fee before we will issue the final document.

(7) You may appeal BLM's estimated processing costs in accordance with the regulations in part 4, subpart E, of this title. You may also appeal any determination BLM makes under paragraph (a) of this section that a document designated for a fixed fee will be processed as a case-by-case fee. We will not process the document further until the appeal is resolved, in accordance with paragraph (b)(5)(i) of this section, unless you pay the fee under protest while the appeal is pending. If the appeal results in a decision changing the proposed fee, we will adjust the fee in accordance with paragraph (b)(5)(ii) of this section.

(a) The table in this section shows the fixed fees that must be paid to the BLM for the services listed for Fiscal Year (FY) 2024. These fees are nonrefundable and must be included with documents filed under this chapter. Fees will be adjusted annually according to the change in the Implicit Price Deflator for Gross Domestic Product (IPD-GDP) and the change in the Consumer Price Index for all goods and all urban consumers (CPI-U) by way of publication of a final rule in the Federal Register and will subsequently be posted on the BLM website (https://www.blm.gov) before October 1 each year. Revised fees are effective each year on October 1.

(b) The amount of a fixed fee is not subject to appeal to the Interior Board of Land Appeals pursuant to part 4, subpart E, of this title.