WASHINGTON -- Federal land miners could be given the chance to buy the land they now dig for precious minerals under legislation approved by a House panel Wednesday.

The House Resources Committee voted to allow the sale of federal land to mining interests, overturning an annual moratorium in place for the past nine years.

The bill also conveys 7,000 acres of Bureau of Land Management property in Pershing County to the Rochester Coeur, a Lovelock mining outfit that wants to turn its exhausted mining operation into a money-making landfill.

While the mining industry praised the bill for providing miners certainty over the land they mine, critics charged lawmakers with giving away an estimated 5.5 million acres of land across the West.

The mining provisions were included in a budget bill moving through the House. It also authorizes oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and encourages coastal states to allow natural gas drilling off their shores.

Congress has banned mining patents since 1996 because many believe mining companies should pay more than the $5 an acre price set in the 1872 mining law. The budget bill raises the price to $1,000 an acre, unless the fair market value is higher.

"It would be unfair to the American public if land values higher than $1,000 were sold below fair market value," said Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., who authored that provision.

"The patenting and purchasing of lands is essential for Nevada and other rural communities because it expands the tax base," he added.

Democrats said the bill also should charge mining companies for the value of the minerals below the surface, a figure that Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., said could be worth "zillions of dollars."

Lawmakers rejected a proposal by Democrats to levy an 8 percent royalty on mining profits, similar to the fee now charged for oil, gas and coal exploration on federal lands.

Speaking against the proposed royalty, Gibbons said mining companies now pay state income, sales, use and property taxes. While the mining industry would accept a royalty, Gibbons said it should factor variables of a diversity of minerals.

Elyssa Rosen of Nevada's Great Basin Mine Watch said the bill spells the end of the state's open spaces and lets the mining companies avoid federal environmental requirements when closing down a mine.

"When you transfer lands out of the public domain you don't have the federal oversight and you wind up with mines being uninsured for environmental cleanup," Rosen said.

She said Nevada has more than 110,000 active mining claims, covering an estimated 2.5 million acres -- an area larger than Yellowstone National Park.

Nevada Mining Association President Russ Fields said the land eligible for purchase, or patenting, would be significantly smaller than the active claims. He estimated that 30 mining companies covering 30,000 have operations in the state.

"Patenting has specific requirements about the marketability of a mineral resource," Fields said. "You have to show you have a profitable mining operations. You can't just go out there and say, 'I want this piece of land.'"

Resource Chairman Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., said the mining law provisions would raise $155 million over five years through land sales and increases in claim processing and maintenance fees.

Democrats criticized the bill for reducing the annual hard-rock claim maintenance fee from $125 to $35 for the next five years.

"I cannot imagine that paying a $125 claim is going to kill the gold industry, but they are being relieved of this trifling, tiny, little fee in this legislation," Rahall said.

Lawmakers added a measure explicitly forbidding mine land sales within National Parks and other environmental sensitive lands.

In the Coeur Rochester mine transaction, the bill would require the company, which has operated the Pershing County mine for 20 years, to pay $7 million. The price is far less than the $68 per acre at which the land is assessed, said Gibbons.

Glenn Miller, a biochemist at the University of Nevada, Reno, wondered whether the sale would let the mining company skip environmental closure rules mandated by the federal government.

"There's a suspicion that it's an attempt to get around the difficult closure issues," said Miller, who noted the potent chemicals used in mining operations. "It isn't the right way to do it. They need to follow the rules."

Coeur Rochester Vice President Barry Olson could not be reached Wednesday for comment. Gibbons said the mine would follow environmental procedures required by federal and state laws.