Supporting Transparent Regulatory and Environmental Actions in Mining Act

Floor Speech

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Mrs. LUMMIS. I thank the chairman for his leadership on this issue.

Mr. Chairman, if you have been listening to this debate thus far, you would believe that we are only talking about mountaintop mining.

Well, I want to assure you the bill that I support that is on the floor today is also trying to protect non-mountaintop mining because the rules that have been proposed by the Obama administration apply to all coal miners.

They apply to non-mountaintop mining as well, including mining in my State of Wyoming and the mining that can occur in the State of Montana, to my north, that has enormous undeveloped coal reserves.

My State of Wyoming has been the number one coal-producing State in this Nation since 1986, for 30 years. The reclamation of those mines is state of the art.

If you go to the top of the tipples at those mines and look around, you cannot tell, if you are an untrained eye, whether the land has been mined and reclaimed or undisturbed and un-mined.

It is because the quality of reclamation that is required by the State of Wyoming is so state of the art that the water is clean, the land is reclaimed, the wildlife returns. In fact, the wildlife prefers to graze on the land that has been reclaimed, as opposed to the land that has not been mined.

States have proven that they can regulate and return properties to a condition that Americans can be proud of and know that we will be safe. Yet, the States have been shut out of this regulatory process.

Legislation which we are discussing today, the STREAM Act, would allow and restore States their rightful place in this discussion.

Where the expertise lies is in the States. They are the ones that should be included in the crafting of any Federal legislation and, in my view, should be left to the States where the expertise lies and where the differences between mining on non-mountain property and a mountain property can be properly addressed.

Applying this stream buffer rule, which the administration proposes, to non-mountaintop mines is absurd. I would further assert that the expertise to deal with mountaintop mining lies in the States where that mining is currently occurring.

I thank the chairman for his leadership on this issue.

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Mrs. LUMMIS. I yield to the gentleman from Colorado.

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Mrs. LUMMIS. Reclaiming my time, the answer is yes, for several reasons. It is because the mix of grasses that are used to reseed the land that has been mined and reclaimed is a mix of grasses that provides for the health that allows for grasses that don't naturally clump, grasses that spread out, to be on the reclaimed land.

So when it rains, you don't have the kind of running off of the topsoil that would occur if the grasses are the type of grasses that tend to clump, instead of cover the ground uniformly.

So that is one of the reasons why the reclaimed land actually is a better trap for water. As we know, when water seeps into the ground, the ground naturally filters the water. So it allows for less runoff of topsoil and allows for the rain to seep into the ground.

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Mrs. LUMMIS. The soil itself is a natural filter for this water. These are the kind of things that States' experts know, and their expertise should be inserted into any rulemaking process.

That is part of the reason that I support the STREAM Act. I support my colleagues from the East and appreciate their attention to this important piece of legislation.

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Mrs. LUMMIS. Mr. Chairman, this is absolutely illustrative of the old adage: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. If it stops moving, subsidize it.

So here is the deal: This country started mining a lot of coal, so the Federal Government taxed it in 1977 through SMCRA, the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act. They put a big tax on coal by the ton, not the Btus, by the ton.

Then the coal companies and the coal industry kept moving, and now they want to regulate it. In fact, this administration wants to regulate it out of existence and has said so. Rules are being proposed to regulate the coal industry out of existence. So that is the keep- moving part. Well, they are being very successful at regulating the coal industry out of existence.

Now, we are to step three. If it stops moving, subsidize it. That is what the amendment we are discussing would do. It is saying the coal industry is on its knees, not acknowledging that they are the ones that put it there. Then they are saying: So let's take money for all of those coal jobs that are being lost due to their policies and let's subsidize it. Let's give them economic development money. Further, let's give it to the administration in Washington to sprinkle about to whom they think it should go to, rather than letting the States that are producing this coal have a fraction of the money that is being produced from their States. This is the Federal Government's mentality run amok.

This is something that Ronald Reagan talked about when he said: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. If it stops moving, subsidize it.

These people don't want subsidies. They want their jobs. They want their communities. They don't want subsidies from the Federal Government.

That said, the omnibus bill that we just passed last month had $90 million for economic development in areas that are losing jobs due to coal policies. For crying out loud, we have lost our minds.

I urge you to oppose the Cartwright amendment.

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