The proposed legislation was backed by the Obama administration. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar stated "There is a new administration in town, and we want to see the 1872 mining law reformed." However, in 2010, Senate majority leader, Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), who was thought to oppose the bill as written, announced that, due to other legislative priorities, the bill would not be acted upon before Congress adjourned, and so the bill died at the end of the 111th United States Congress in January 2011.