{"id":4435,"date":"2015-11-02T14:54:06","date_gmt":"2015-11-02T19:54:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/epcamr.org\/home\/?p=4435"},"modified":"2015-12-01T13:21:51","modified_gmt":"2015-12-01T18:21:51","slug":"environmental-good-samaritan-legislation-and-funding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epcamr.org\/home\/2015\/environmental-good-samaritan-legislation-and-funding\/","title":{"rendered":"Environmental Good Samaritan Legislation and Funding"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two bills were introduced in the\u00a0U.S.\u00a0House of Representatives last week, related to “Environmental Good Samaritan Legislation”:<\/p>\n

H.R. 3843 (Rep. Doug Lamborn)<\/a>, To authorize for a 7-year period of the collection of claim location and maintenance fees, and for other purposes; Also known as the \u2018\u2018Locatable Minerals Claim Location and Maintenance Fees Act of 2015.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

and<\/p>\n

H.R. 3844 (Rep. Jody Hice)<\/a>, To establish the Energy and Minerals Reclamation Foundation to encourage, obtain, and use gifts, devises, and bequests for projects to reclaim abandoned mine lands and orphaned oil and gas well sites, and for other purposes; Also known as the \u201cEnergy and Minerals Reclamation Foundation Establishment Act of 2015.\u201d<\/p>\n

The first bill establishes a division between\u00a0active vs.\u00a0inactive and abandoned non-coal mine lands, then sets up a program to deal with the\u00a0Abandoned Non-coal Mine Lands within the Department of the Interior Bureau of Land Management. This authority is similar to the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1972, established for coal mines. Lastly, a\u00a0permitting authority may issue a permit to a Good Samaritan to carry out\u00a0cleanup of an abandoned mine land (coal or non-coal), which would exempt them from strict Clean Water Act policies. The term Good Samaritan is defined as\u00a0“any person that did not participate in any way in the creation of, or activities that caused, any historic mine residue at the inactive or abandoned mine site.”<\/p>\n

The second bill is more concerning, however. It establishes a foundation to manage federally and privately matched dollars to help clean up abandoned mine lands and orphaned gas wells, touted as being similar to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF). While at initial glance\u00a0the legislation to establish a foundation for this purpose seems worthwhile, there are some special powers that it lends and special interests that it seems to serve. When delving into the details, the foundation seems less and less like NFWF. For instance, a board member for this foundation\u00a0must be “educated or have experience in energy or minerals production\u00a0and\u00a0reclamation of mine lands or oil and gas fields; or\u00a0energy and mineral resource financing, law, or research.” This qualification seems to leave out citizen involvement and bears heavily on industry experience. However, the\u00a0initial board would be determined by the Interstate Mining Compact Commission and the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission, both are coalitions of mining state governors and their staff that deal with mineral resources. This affiliation seems to be a positive. A controversial\u00a0part of the bill is the Acquisition of Real Property and Exemption from Condemnation, which could be seen as an encroachment on state and local government rights. Lastly, the pots of federal money to be allocated are a few million dollars. In Pennsylvania alone, abandoned mine lands are a 15 billion<\/em> dollar problem. This proposed foundation would serve a national arena of abandoned mine lands and will need a heavy influx of\u00a0private donations for the program to be successful.<\/p>\n

Please see the related\u00a0article<\/a>\u00a0from NPR\u00a0that talks about the impetus of this legislation, which swirls around the Animas River spill that occurred only a few month ago. In this news clip, a legislator warns, “these so-called Good Samaritan waivers – unless they are very carefully crafted – are not the solution.” They are controversial indeed, but have some merit. We understand legislators are willing to hear comments and make the appropriate changes.<\/p>\n

EPCAMR is continuing to review\u00a0each piece of legislation carefully and plans to comment. We would encourage you to share your comments as well. The comment period for both bills\u00a0will open November 4th\u00a0and the window should extend into early December.<\/p>\n ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two bills were introduced in the\u00a0U.S.\u00a0House of Representatives last week, related to “Environmental Good Samaritan Legislation”: H.R. 3843 (Rep. Doug Lamborn), To authorize for a 7-year period of the collection of claim location and maintenance fees, and for other purposes; Also known as the \u2018\u2018Locatable Minerals Claim Location and Maintenance\u2026<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discussion"],"yoast_head":"\nEnvironmental Good Samaritan Legislation and Funding - epcamr.org<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/epcamr.org\/home\/2015\/environmental-good-samaritan-legislation-and-funding\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Environmental Good Samaritan Legislation and Funding - epcamr.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Two bills were introduced in the\u00a0U.S.\u00a0House of Representatives last week, related to “Environmental Good Samaritan Legislation”: H.R. 3843 (Rep. 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