Comstock Mining Receives Expanded Exploration Permits

Comstock Mining Inc.

announced today that the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection has issued a Reclamation Permit (No. 0315) authorizing exploration drilling for the Company's two major targets in Lyon County, the Dayton Resource Area and the Spring Valley Area. Together with the Special Use Permit issued by Storey County in October of 2011, the receipt of this latest permit is the last permit authorization needed for the Company's proposed drilling programs. As a condition of both permits, soil assessments will commence this week to determine the levels of the EPA-identified Contaminants of Concern in areas around historic mill sites and tailings. The program will be conducted in compliance with a sampling and analysis plan recently approved by NDEP's Bureau of Corrective Action. The purpose of this program is to ascertain any actual levels of contamination and potentially remove these sites from the Carson River Mercury Superfund Site (CRMS) designation. Initial testing should allow site-specific exploration operations to begin in our Lucerne Resource Area in early February. The Company will actually commence 2012 exploration activities on January 23, 2012, in our Spring Valley Target Area on areas outside of the CRMS designation. "Last year we validated 2.4 million ounces of gold and over 20 million ounces of silver," stated Corrado De Gasperis, the Company's Chief Executive Officer. "This represented the most efficient drilling program in our history, with a discovery cost of just $6 per gold-equivalent resource ounce, and identified higher grade, robust potential in both our Dayton and East-side Lucerne Areas. These new permits and the completion of the prerequisite soil sampling allows for the expansion and acceleration of these programs in 2012 and beyond."