WASHINGTON — The Obama administration took steps Monday to reverse a last-minute Bush-era rule that allows mountaintop mining waste to be dumped near streams, saying it was bad public policy.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said the rule didn’t “pass the smell test” and that he wanted a federal judge to give the Office of Surface Mining another crack at refining the so-called buffer-zone rule. If a judge approves, Salazar proposes the temporary reinstatement of a 1983 regulation that would keep coal companies 100 feet away from streams unless they could prove mining wouldn’t harm water quality or quantity.
Two lawsuits pending in federal court seek to block or overturn the Bush rule, which was approved the month the administration left office. The rule primarily affects mines in West Virginia, Kentucky and Virginia.
In a court filing Monday on one of the cases, Justice Department lawyers said the rule should be vacated because the Fish and Wildlife Service had not been consulted about its effect on threatened and endangered species.
