House EPA-lnterior Spending Bill Restricts Agency Authority Over Air, Water, Solid Waste

摘要

The Environmental Protection Agency and the Interior Department would be subject to new restrictions in the regulation of mountaintop mining and in operating air, water, and solid waste programs under a budget bill approved July 7 by the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies. The $27.5 billion appropriations bill for fiscal year 2012 contains policy riders that would bar EPA and Interior's Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement from regulating coal mining operations in Appalachia through guidance documents issued in 2009 and 2010, and would prohibit OSM from regulating mining waste disposal near streams.