February 3, 2017 – Andrea Sears, Public News Service (PA)
Debris from coal mining contains heavy metals such as mercury, selenium and arsenic. (Jakec/Wikimedia Commons)
HARRISBURG, Pa. – Congress has voted to eliminate a regulation that restricts the disposal of dangerous coal-mining waste in nearby streams.
Lawmakers used the Congressional Review Act, a seldom-used 1996 law that says regulations finalized in the last 60 legislative days of the year can be overturned with a simple majority vote in both houses and the president’s signature. According to Dalal Aboulhosn, deputy legislative director of the Sierra Club, the action guts the Stream Protection Rule, which was created with input from stakeholders and review of more than 100,000 public comments over almost a decade.
“Now, with this new Congress and this new administration,” she said, “we’re seeing them use the Congressional Review Act to dismantle these well-thought-out and scientifically based rules.”
Republicans called the regulation a “thinly veiled attempt to wipe out coal-mining jobs,” but the U.S. Interior Department said it would protect 6,000 miles of streams and 52,000 acres of forestland from mine waste contaminated with mercury, selenium and arsenic.
The Congressional Review Act not only overturns existing regulations but also prevents federal agencies from imposing similar rules in the future. Aboulhosn said Congress could be holding hearings and passing legislation to improve rules.
“Instead, they are using the blunt instrument of the Congressional Review Act to just take it off the books and never have it looked at again,” she said. “That is just a clear giveaway to industry.”
Under the act, any rules finalized since June 13 can be overturned with simple-majority votes. That puts more than 50 major regulations at risk, including a new methane emissions rule to capture wasted gas at wells on federal land, up for discussion today. Individual states can establish environmental rules that are more protective than federal regulations, but Aboulhosn said federal rules establish minimum standards for environmental hazards that know no boundaries.
“So, we really do need that federal floor to make sure that people across the nation are being protected,” she said, “and not just a couple of states that are doing a better job than others.”
More information is online at content.sierraclub.org.
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