Getting your player ready...
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama wants to save $115 million this year — and $1.2 billion over 10 years — by eliminating payments to states and Indian tribes that have completed cleanup of abandoned coal mines.
Obama calls the proposal common sense: Why pay states to clean up mines that have already been cleaned up? But eliminating the program may not be so easy. Obama tried the same thing last year and was rebuffed.
Lawmakers from mining states say the money is needed to create jobs and to clean up other mines, including hard-rock mines, that continue to pose a danger.
