365 Days of Claims
Claim #361 of 365
Mostly False high confidence

The claim contains some truth but is largely inaccurate or misleading.

geothermallease-salesenergyrenewable-energyrecord-claimsnevada

The Claim

Held a record-breaking geothermal lease sale in October — the largest ever by dollar amount — totaling nearly $9.5 million in revenue.

The Claim, Unpacked

What is literally being asserted?

Three things: (1) a geothermal lease sale was held in October 2025, (2) it was “the largest ever by dollar amount,” and (3) it generated nearly $9.5 million in revenue.

What is being implied but not asserted?

That this administration’s energy policies produced an unprecedented result in geothermal leasing, and that geothermal revenue of this magnitude is significant. The placement under “Energy Dominance” implies this is part of a fossil-fuel-first agenda, though geothermal is a renewable energy source — an irony given this administration’s hostility toward other renewables.

What is conspicuously absent?

The August 2008 BLM geothermal lease sale in Nevada generated $28.2 million in bids — nearly three times the October 2025 total. The October 2024 sale under the Biden administration generated $7.86 million, meaning the 2025 sale represented only a 20% increase over the prior year’s result. Also absent: the $9.5 million in geothermal revenue is roughly 2.7% of the $356.6 million in oil and gas lease revenue this administration claims in item 345, providing scale for how marginal this figure is.

Overlap Analysis: Item 363

This sale is a subset of the aggregate claimed in item 363, which asserts “$24 million in total receipts from leasing 141 parcels totaling 451,893 acres at competitive geothermal lease sales in California, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, and Utah.” The October 2025 Nevada sale accounts for approximately 86 of those 141 parcels. Items 361 and 363 count the same Nevada revenue twice — once as a standalone “record” and once as part of the aggregate total.

Evidence Assessment

Established Facts

A BLM competitive geothermal lease sale was held in Nevada on October 21, 2025, generating $8,868,060 in high bids across 86 of 113 parcels offered, covering 280,559 acres. 1 The BLM’s official results page reports the high bid total as $8,868,060. ThinkGeoEnergy, a geothermal industry trade publication, reports total receipts of $9.44 million, with the difference likely reflecting first-year rental payments and administrative fees added to the bonus bids. The White House’s “nearly $9.5 million” rounds up from the $9.44 million total receipts figure. The sale took place across Churchill, Esmeralda, Elko, Eureka, Humboldt, Lander, Lyon, Mineral, Nye, Pershing, and Washoe counties.

The August 5, 2008 BLM geothermal lease sale in Nevada generated $28.2 million in bonus bids — nearly three times the October 2025 sale — and remains the all-time BLM record by dollar amount. 2 The Department of the Interior’s own 2008 press release described it as “the largest geothermal sale ever in terms of dollars bid.” All 35 parcels offered were sold, covering 105,211 acres in eight northern Nevada counties. The DOE confirmed this as a record. This sale conclusively disproves the White House claim that the October 2025 sale was “the largest ever by dollar amount.”

The October 8, 2024 BLM Nevada geothermal lease sale, held under the Biden administration, generated $7,864,140 from 64 of 66 parcels covering 217,866 acres. 3 BLM itself described the 2024 sale as “the most successful sale since 2008 and the second-most ever.” The October 2025 sale exceeded this by approximately 20% ($9.44M vs. $7.86M), but both are far below the 2008 record.

The strong competitive interest in Nevada geothermal leasing is part of a multi-year trend that predates the current administration. 4 The November 2023 Biden-era sale leased 33 parcels for $1.03 million. The October 2024 sale jumped to $7.86 million. The October 2025 sale reached $9.44 million. This trajectory reflects growing private-sector interest in geothermal energy driven by technology advances (particularly enhanced geothermal systems), data center power demand, and the fundamental economics of baseload renewable energy — not a single administration’s policies.

Strong Inferences

The BLM’s own press release for the October 2025 sale does not describe it as a “record” or “largest ever” — that language was added by the White House. 5 The BLM results announcement reports the figures without superlative claims. ThinkGeoEnergy described it as “a new record for Nevada” in terms of parcels receiving bids, but even this more modest claim is contradicted by the 2008 sale’s $28.2 million (also in Nevada). The “Nevada record” framing may refer only to the post-2020 era of revived competitive geothermal leasing.

The Trump administration’s BLM Instruction Memorandum 2026-004 (December 16, 2025) mandating annual geothermal lease sales was issued after the October 2025 sale took place, meaning this sale was conducted under prior policy. 6 The Biden administration had already been holding annual sales in Nevada. The IM’s main practical change is mandating annual sales across all states, not just Nevada, and reducing public participation requirements.

What the Evidence Shows

The October 2025 geothermal lease sale in Nevada did happen, and it did generate approximately $9.44 million in total receipts. But the central claim — “the largest ever by dollar amount” — is flatly contradicted by the BLM’s own historical record. The August 2008 Nevada sale generated $28.2 million, roughly three times the October 2025 total. The Department of the Interior itself called the 2008 sale “the largest geothermal sale ever in terms of dollars bid.” The White House is claiming a record that doesn’t exist.

The sale does represent the strongest result in the post-2020 revival of competitive geothermal leasing, but framing requires context. The October 2024 Biden-era sale generated $7.86 million — the then-second-largest ever — meaning the 2025 sale was a 20% incremental increase atop an already-surging market. Nevada’s geothermal leasing has been on a steep upward trajectory since 2023, driven by private-sector interest in enhanced geothermal systems for data center power, the Fervo Energy demonstrations, and growing recognition of geothermal as reliable baseload renewable energy. This trajectory began under the Biden administration and continued under Trump.

There is an additional irony worth noting. Geothermal is a renewable energy source, and this administration has been openly hostile to renewables — Executive Order 14154 defined “energy” to include geothermal but explicitly excluded wind and solar (item 323). The administration is happy to claim credit for renewable energy development when it produces a talking point, while actively undermining the renewable energy sector more broadly.

The revenue scale also deserves perspective. The $9.44 million in geothermal lease revenue is 2.7% of the $356.6 million in oil and gas lease revenue claimed in item 345. It is a rounding error in the context of federal energy revenue, which totaled $14.61 billion in FY2025. Including this as a separate “win” — and then counting the same revenue again in item 363’s aggregate figure — is classic list-padding.

The Bottom Line

The core factual claim is wrong. The October 2025 Nevada geothermal lease sale generated approximately $9.44 million in total receipts, but it was not “the largest ever by dollar amount.” The August 2008 BLM sale generated $28.2 million — nearly three times as much — and the Department of the Interior’s own records confirm 2008 as the all-time record. The White House either didn’t check its own department’s history or deliberately misrepresented the result.

To the extent the sale reflects growing interest in geothermal energy on federal lands, that trend began under the Biden administration and represents the kind of renewable energy development this administration’s broader policies actively discourage. The $9.44 million, while a positive development for geothermal energy, is a trivial sum in the context of federal energy revenue and is counted twice between this item and item 363.

Footnotes

  1. BLM, “BLM Nevada Geothermal Lease Sale October Results,” https://www.blm.gov/press-release/blm-nevada-geothermal-lease-sale-october-results; ThinkGeoEnergy, “BLM Nevada geothermal lease sale nets over USD 9 million in bids on 86 parcels,” https://www.thinkgeoenergy.com/blm-nevada-geothermal-lease-sale-nets-over-usd-9-million-in-bids-on-86-parcels/ ↩

  2. DOI, “Record Geothermal Lease Sale Generates $28 Million in Bids,” August 8, 2008, https://www.doi.gov/sites/default/files/archive/news/archive/08_News_Releases/080808b.html; DOE, “Geothermal Lease Sale in Nevada Yields Record Bids,” https://www.energy.gov/eere/geothermal/articles/geothermal-lease-sale-nevada-yields-record-bids ↩

  3. BLM, “BLM announces geothermal lease sale results in Nevada,” https://www.blm.gov/announcement/blm-announces-geothermal-lease-sale-results-nevada; Las Vegas Sun, “66 parcels sold at BLM’s geothermal lease sale in Nevada,” October 9, 2024, https://lasvegassun.com/news/2024/oct/09/66-parcels-sold-at-blms-geothermal-lease-sale-in-n/ ↩

  4. ThinkGeoEnergy, “BLM Nevada geothermal lease sale nets over USD 9 million”; BLM, “BLM leases 96,605 acres for clean geothermal energy production in Nevada” (November 2023 results), https://www.blm.gov/press-release/blm-leases-96605-acres-clean-geothermal-energy-production-nevada ↩

  5. BLM, “BLM Nevada Geothermal Lease Sale October Results”; ThinkGeoEnergy, “BLM Nevada geothermal lease sale nets over USD 9 million” ↩

  6. BLM, “Promoting Annual Competitive Geothermal Lease Sales (IM 2026-004),” December 16, 2025, https://www.blm.gov/policy/im2026-004 ↩