interior department

The Interior Department just sent over its statement reacting to a judge’s decision today to uphold a Bush-era rule making it easier for mining companies to dump their waste in mountain streams. In toto:
This Administration has shown it is determined to improve mining practices and we will do so within the context of the court’s [...]

A federal judge today blocked the Obama administration’s efforts overturn a Bush administration rule allowing coal companies to dump their mining waste in mountain streams.
The ruling is a victory for Appalachian mountaintop removal operations, where the peaks of mountains are literally lopped off with dynamite and the rock and soil pushed into adjacent valleys, many [...]

From The Colorado Independent:
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar today issued a notice of withdrawal of nearly 1 million acres of BLM and U.S. Forest Service land around the Grand Canyon from new mining claims for the next two years to allow for more study and analysis.
The move drew the praise of conservation groups such as the [...]

The Obama administration today announced plans to abandon a controversial last-minute Bush-era rule that made it easier for mining companies to fill valleys and streams with the debris from their mountain-topping operations.
From an Interior Department statement:
Under the Bush rule, coal mine operators are able to dispose of excess mountaintop spoil in perennial and intermittent streams [...]

In a last-minute genuflection to the mining industry, the Bush administration yesterday finalized its contentious plan to lift restrictions on mine-debris disposal, allowing companies to fill valleys and streams with the waste from their operations.
The change is of particular threat to Appalachia, where coal miners have adopted the practice of blasting the tops off of [...]

Andrew Wetzler, head of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s endangered species project, has been blogging today about the Bush administration’s attempt to rush through new rules that could overhaul the Endangered Species Act. In one post, Wetzler argues that the White House’s actions could be illegal.

In what looks like an effort to rush through proposed rules to overhaul the Endangered Species Act, the Interior Dept. has said it plans on reviewing 200,000 public comments in just 32 hours, according to The Associated Press.
The agency actually received a total of 300,000 comments, but says 100,000 of those were form letters.

This is at least the fourth time I’ve heard someone refer to the Bush administration’s proposed regulation on the Endangered Species Act as the “fox guarding the henhouse.”
It’s not just because endangered-species workers love animal analogies. It’s because the new rule gives government agencies the power, sans oversight, to decide for themselves whether their own [...]

Oil companies self-report how much they drill, for a royalty program that is the government’s largest source of revenue after income taxes.