(a) The Chairman shall initiate a resource inventory and assessment program with the objective of making regional and national appraisals of all types of geothermal resources, including identification of promising target areas for industrial exploration and development. The specific goals shall include—
(1) the improvement of geophysical, geochemical, geological, and hydrological techniques necessary for locating and evaluating geothermal resources;
(2) the development of better methods for predicting the power potential and longevity of geothermal reservoirs;
(3) the determination and assessment of the nature and power potential of the deeper unexplored parts of high temperature geothermal convection systems; and
(4) the survey and assessment of regional and national geothermal resources of all types.
(b) The Chairman, acting through the United States Geological Survey and other appropriate agencies, shall—
(1) develop and carry out a general plan for the orderly inventorying of all forms of geothermal resources of the Federal lands and, where consistent with property rights and determined by the Chairman to be in the national interest, of non-Federal lands;
(2) conduct regional surveys, based upon such a general plan, using innovative geological, geophysical, geochemical, and stratagraphic drilling techniques, which will lead to a national inventory of geothermal resources in the United States;
(3) publish and make available maps, reports, and other documents developed from such surveys to encourage and facilitate the commercial development of geothermal resources for beneficial use and consistent with the national interest;
(4) make such recommendations for legislation or administrative regulations as may from time to time appear to be necessary to make Federal leasing, environmental and taxing policy for geothermal resources consistent with known inventories of various resource types, with the current state of technologies for geothermal energy development, and with current evaluations of the environmental impacts of such development; and
(5) participate with appropriate Federal agencies and non-Federal entities in research to develop, improve, and test technologies for the discovery and evaluation of all forms of geothermal resources, and conduct research into the principles controlling the location, occurrence, size, temperature, energy content, producibility, and economic lifetimes of geothermal reservoirs.
(Pub. L. 93–410, title I, §103, Sept. 3, 1974, 88 Stat. 1082; Pub. L. 95–238, title V, §503, Feb. 25, 1978, 92 Stat. 86; Pub. L. 102–154, title I, Nov. 13, 1991, 105 Stat. 1000.)
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