Take Action: Talking Points

Tell OSM: "Pull The Rule”
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Sample Talking Points:
On the Rule-
• I am opposed to any attempt to weaken or eliminate the stream buffer zone rule that has protected streams from coal mining activities for 20 years.

• The proposed regulation (RIN 1029-AC04), "Excess Spoil, Coal Mine Waste, and Buffers for Waters of the United States," 72 Fed. Reg. 48890 would repeal a 1983 regulation, adopted by the Reagan Administration, which protects streams from coal mining activities by creating a 100-foot buffer zone around them.

• The current rule –if enforced- protects streams from valley fills. The federal surface mining law (SMCRA) currently prohibits surface mining or mining activities within 100 feet of perennial or intermittent

• The new rule- would “revise the current stream buffer zone regulation to ‘clarify’ the kinds of coal mining activities that are subject to that rule”. Stream crossings, sedimentation ponds (i.e. coal slurry impoundments), permanent excess spoil (i.e. mining waste) and coal waste disposal facilities would no longer be subject to the new rule.

• Filling an entire stream with waste (or permanent excess spoil), as is done in mountaintop removal, is a violation of the current rule- but the administration won't enforce it, so they are trying to change it. OSM needs to pull the proposed rule, and enforce the law.



On Water-
• Already, nearly 2000 miles of mountain streams in Appalachia have been buried by mountaintop removal waste, wiping out these streams and causing flooding and destruction in the surrounding communities.

• The Administration’s failure to enforce the buffer zone law led to an additional 535 miles of stream impacts nationwide during between 2001 and 2005.

• OSM’s proposed rule to “clarify” the buffer zone would allow more than 1,000 miles of streams to be destroyed each decade into the future.

• In Tennessee, the rule is anticipated to impact 22 coalfield TN counties and approximately 1 million Tennesseans and 17 TN state park watersheds.

On Climate Change-
• The administration’s proposed rule would greatly increase our nation's reliance on mountaintop removal coal. Coal is the country's largest, dirtiest source of electricity and climate-changing greenhouse gases.

• The proposed rule is a step backwards in establishing sound energy policy, it would legalize and expand the worst abuses of mountaintop removal.

• As an American, I am invested in energy security, and believe that relaxing mining regulations to legalize a mountaintop removal “coal rush” is not a way to address energy independence.

• A national poll conducted in September by the Opinion Research Corporation stated, “ 77% of Americans feel it would be better for the Bush Administration to concentrate first on energy conservation before resorting to more mountaintop removal”.

On Public Process-
• OSM announced the public hearings with less then 14 working days notice for the public. Considering the Department of Interior and Office of Surface Mining has been compiling this information for over three years - 14 days working notice for public hearings is inadequate for allowing public participation in both the Draft Environmental Impact Statement and the Proposed Rule Change.

• The magnitude of the documents that must be reviewed, the diversity and severity of impacts this proposed rule would have on different communities in many states and the need for citizens living in affected communities to understand those impacts and develop comments based on sound legal and scientific analysis.

• OSM’s decision to allow only fourteen working days notice questionable in terms of the agency’s intent in allowing a authentic avenue for legitimate public process on this proposed rule change