"Congress approved $11.3 billion to clean up abandoned mine lands in the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, but environmental groups are worried that President Biden hasn’t chosen anyone to oversee how that money is spent on coal mines.

Passage of the infrastructure package was heralded by activists as a massive shipment of cash to help remedy the environmental legacy of abandoned coal mines that are littered throughout the U.S., including the Appalachia region.

While this was a victory, environmentalists say government decisions on how to use the money could stall without a nominee at the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, the federal agency tasked with regulating coal mine reclamation (Greenwire, Nov. 11).

This afternoon, Sierra Club and activists from the Appalachia region urged the president to nominate a director for OSMRE in order to make sure the money is “carefully administered.”"

Jael Holzman reports for E&E News December 13, 2021. [2]