EPA drops rule requiring mining companies to have money to clean up pollution

[babylonsister]

EPA drops rule requiring mining companies to have money to clean up pollution

Matthew Brown
Associated Press


President Donald Trump's administration announced Friday that it won't require mining companies to prove they have the financial wherewithal to clean up their pollution, despite an industry legacy of abandoned mines that have fouled waterways across the U.S.

The move came after mining groups and Western-state Republicans pushed back against a proposal under former President Barack Obama to make companies set aside money for future cleanup costs.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt said modern mining practices and state and federal rules already in place adequately address the risks from mines that are still operating.

Requiring more from mining companies was unnecessary, Pruitt said, and "would impose an undue burden on this important sector of the American economy and rural America, where most of these jobs are based."

more...

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-epa-mining-pollution-20171201-story.html

[oasis]

1. "Make America Great Again" let's not hold polluters accountable.

[Iliyah]

2. Damn

Cost fallen on the little guy.

[Fullduplexxx]

3. EPA drops rule requiring mining companies to have money to clean up pollution

[RKP5637]

4. The top priority should be cleaning up the pollution in the White House!

[spanone]

5. fuck this administration

[WyLoochka]

6. so who is on the hook for clean-up?

There are hundreds of defunct coal bed methane mines, open pit mines, abandoned oil and gas rigs and ancillary support structures sitting out here on the wind swept plains of Wyoming (many on public lands) posing danger to people and wildlife and leaking toxic crap into ecosystems.

Who is going to pay to clean these sites up? The state? The state has bonding requirements that stipulates companies need to buy bonds and keep them in place in order to have the resources to do the clean up when finished. Many companies have gone bankrupt. The people only then learned that the companies had stopped paying for the bonds and let them be canceled. So we don't have what was intended - pre-paid funds to do the clean up.

What does neanderthal Pruitt suggest? Just go back to pre EPA times - no one clean up at all - just leave these toxic, festering, dangerous sites all over the place for all of perpetuity?