SME filed comments opposing the Office of Surface Mining’s (OSMRE) proposed Stream Protection Rule on October 16, 2015. On October 27, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee held a hearing on the development and potential implementation of the proposed Rule. In thanking OSMRE for its efforts to address this important issue, SME Executive Director David L. Kanagy requested the agency to extend the comment period again. “Ninety days is an insufficient time to review such a sweeping change in regulations, especially considering the obvious technical shortcomings already discovered,” stated Kanagy.
SME’s Government and Public Affairs Committee drafted the comments that attack the agency’s proposal to use a model mine that does not accurately predict impacts in relation to different sizes of mining operations. Further, SME is critical of the general monitoring requirement that does not recognize the biological and ecological variation in ephemeral streams across the coal regions defined by OSMRE in the proposal, and that it is not a given that any and all onsite changes due to mining also results in offsite changes.