US House Panel Investigates Delaying Cleanup of Exploited Coal Mining Sites

 

 

By Dustan Tomlinson

June 21, 2021 - The U.S. House of Representatives Natural Resources Subcommittee investigated the need for cleanup of areas transitioning from coal production on Tuesday, and witnesses representing coal workers and the Native American community put energy companies in a pre-mined state. He said he should be responsible for returning.

Much of the conversation in the Energy and Mineral Resources Subcommittee’s hearing focused on the concept of “environmental justice” and the restoration of mining sites, including the recently closed coal-producing area in Navajo Nation, northern Arizona.

“These communities, especially the country of India, have really been exploited,” said Subcommittee Chairman Alan Lowenthal (D-Calif.). “It’s a really scary, scary situation.”

However, Republicans on the panel criticized the opposition to fossil fuels as “murder,” saying that the shift to cleaner energy sources had resulted in job losses and a blow to economic development in the mining region. Some western states, such as Wyoming, were able to strike a balance between environmental protection and fossil fuel production, they said.

US Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) Removes responsibility from the “deadbeat coal company” that the Wyoming experience has brought “very realistic burdens and difficulties” to struggling communities. I suggested that it was not a thing.

 

Decreasing Coal

Coal usage has fallen by 46% since its peak in 2007, according to the company. US Energy Information Administration, US Department of Energy agency.

Mary Cromer, deputy director of the Appalachian Civil Law Center, said the decline often resulted in the industry abandoning mines without the cleanup required by federal law.

“As coal declines, coal mining regulations are not catching up, coal companies are increasingly waiving their environmental obligations, and bonds are too scarce to cover rehabilitation costs,” she said. “The coalfield community is worried that dangerous and unusable lands and polluted streams will be forever burdened.”

One of the most affected communities is Navajo Nation, which has mines in Kayenta and Black Mesa, and the coal-powered Navajo power plant, which was closed in 2019.

Nicole Horsehelder, secretary-general of the Arizona-based Native American Environmental Group, said the Navajo people were struck by decades of unemployment when these sites were shut down in 2019. He said that the deterioration of the environment caused by the above was not yet mitigated. Tó Nizhóní Ání.

She said she had mined “damaged” Navajo land and polluted the local water supply. In the lease, Peabody Western Energy, the operator of mines and plants in Northern Arizona, needs to bring the land back to the same quality as it was before mining, but the company does not meet that standard, so the federal government forces the company. I’m doing almost nothing for that. She said.

Congress should “request a significant mine permit revision” before companies like Peabody renew their permits to force them to complete cleanup, Horsehelder said.

The Republican Party supported Wyoming as an example of success, saying federal bureaucracy could delay the mine reclamation process.

The state’s coal mining is managed “in a way that protects the state and provides responsible coal resource development,” testified Caerwentland, director of the Wyoming Land Quality Division.

The state revise the bonds paid by mining companies each year to ensure that there are enough funds to recover the abandoned mine.

Mining Work

Members of both parties agreed that the closure of the coal plant had a distressing economic impact on some areas, but disagreed on what to do about it.

Republicans have blamed Democratic policies to discourage fossil fuels to close the Navajo power plant and elsewhere in the country.

According to Republicans, closing a coal factory was unfair to the tribe as it robbed them of jobs and cheap energy and made them responsible for the global problems of climate change.

Landfill and purification could provide employment opportunities for miners and other workers affected by the depletion of coal, Horsehelder said, and President Joe Byden and others evacuated. It reflects the elements of a “fair transition” from fossil fuels that have been promoted to help workers find new jobs.

But the Republicans argued that wasn’t enough.

Subcommittee ranking Republican Pete Stauber said the average salary of the Navajo workforce at the Kayenta mine was over $ 100,000. The work was much better and lasted longer than the temporary work of the cleanup project, he said.

“As part of a fair transition, are you losing hundreds of Native American jobs with an average annual salary of $ 117,000?” Asked Stauber, who represents the mining region of northern Minnesota.

Some Republicans have said that fossil fuel production and environmental protection can coexist.

Other witnesses have called on the federal government to establish better safeguards to ensure that mining companies pay to clean abandoned mines.

Joseph G. Pizzarkik, director of the Federal Surface Mine Regeneration and Execution Bureau during the Obama administration, called on Congress to ban self-guarantee. With self-bonding, a company can only offer a promise to reuse the site without a separate upfront to ensure that the funds are available. Pizarchik called self-joining “essentially no binding”.

“It’s clear that the regulations governing the use and exchange of self-bonds aren’t working and can’t be fixed,” he said.

Rep. Diana Deget, Colorado, praised the state’s Department of Judiciary Transition, an agency of the Ministry of Labor and Employment that provides resources to evacuated coal workers, and asked if a federal equivalent would help.

“It’s very useful,” Horseherder replied.

Cromer said there are several strategies lawmakers should pursue to minimize unemployment. She said the problem was too big for a single policy to be sufficient.

“Our region has long been very dependent on this one industry and has historically provided high-paying jobs, so there is no one idea, to enter and ensure that transition is made. There is no business that can be, “she said.