Pictured in this Jan. 14, 2025 U.S. Office of Mining Surface Reclamation and Enforcement notice to the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection is what the former agency said is an access road at Bluestone Coal Corp.’s No. 45 Mine in McDowell County.
The Trump administration plans to roll back a rule West Virginia environmental advocates have used to report concerns about surface coal mining operations and hold state regulators accountable.
The Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement has proposed changes to the rule that have drawn the ire of those advocates, who say the moves on the table will stack the deck in favor of polluting coal companies at the expense of coalfields already ravaged by their mining.
“The administration’s rewrite of this rule will do nothing but eliminate protections for everyday people in order to benefit those who profit from destructive, polluting, reckless coal mining practices,†Willie Dodson, coal impacts program manager for environmental nonprofit Appalachian Voices, said in a statement.
President Donald Trump’s OSMRE plans the changes for the Ten-Day Notice rule, which addresses potential violations of coal mining laws, regulations and permits, after the agency amended the rule last year under then-President Joe Biden to ease the process for citizens to report coal mining operation concerns.
The Ten-Day Notice is named as such because it gives state regulators 10 days to respond to the OSMRE of their findings if the OSMRE determines there’s reason to believe a violation exists after the federal agency gets information about a potential violation.
The Biden administration removed language requiring a citizen to first contact a state regulatory agency before contacting the OSMRE to report a possible violation of federal law that regulates surface coal mining.
That meant less reliance for West Virginians on the state Department of Environmental Protection, which many anti-mining conservationists and environmental advocates have viewed as a rubber stamp for the coal industry, in reporting concerns with mining operations.
“This is very good news for citizens like us who struggle with a Department of Environmental Protection that finds any excuse to avoid tangible enforcement,†Vernon Haltom, executive director of Raleigh County-based anti-surface mining group Coal River Mountain Watch, said after the OSMRE moved to change the rule under then-President Joe Biden last year.
But now the OSMRE plans to reestablish the requirement that a person requesting a federal inspection notify both an OSMRE-authorized representative and the state regulatory agency, saying in its rule proposal doing so better aligns with “the goals of cooperative federalism.â€
Responding to the OSMRE’s pending proposal, Haltom said that without the federal oversight responsiveness aimed for in the 2024 rule, the DEP will “return to dragging their feet for months and years to not only enforce the law but comply with the law."
“Violations will again go unabated well beyond the statutory limits,†Haltom said, “and the people and mountain habitats will suffer.â€
Adam Suess, acting assistant secretary for land and minerals management, contended in a statement that the rule “respect[s] states’ right to lead.â€
“Federal oversight doesn’t mean federal interference,†Suess said.
The OSMRE states in its rule proposal that the Ten-Day Notice isn’t a permissible way under the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977, which established the OSMRE, for the agency to review a state regulatory authority’s actions.
The OSMRE acknowledges that it may issue a Ten-Day Notice under the 1977 law when “any person is in violation of any requirement of this Act,†but it has now interpreted the law as excluding state regulators from its definition of “person.â€
West Virginia joined 14 other states in an Indiana-led federal lawsuit last year suing the Department of the Interior, which houses the OSMRE, over the rule, arguing it exceeds the department’s authority.
The OSMRE is taking public comment on its proposal until July 16.
Ten-Day Notice was turning point in DEP mine oversight Â
DEP permitting oversight of a Boone County mine permit for which the agency extended a notice of violation over two dozen times changed quickly after the OSMRE issued a Ten-Day Notice in 2023.
The DEP extended a violation notice issued to Lexington Coal Company, a mine operator chronically delinquent in paying DEP fines for frequent environmental violations, for failure to reclaim highwall at its Twilight MTR Surface Mine 25 times from August 2021 to August 2023.
The DEP renewed the company’s permit for the mine in January 2023 despite objections from environmental advocates. The agency extended the violation notice throughout summer 2022 despite its records indicating Lexington had ceased reclamation activities from June until September 2023.
In July 2023, Coal River Mountain Watch, joined by environmental groups Appalachian Voices and Sierra Club, requested that the OSMRE review DEP’s oversight of the Twilight MTR Surface Mine.
The groups objected to what was then a 737-day extension of the violation notice, citing a state legislative rule holding that an operator must establish “by clear and convincing proof†that they should get an extension of a violation.
The OSMRE issued a Ten-Day Notice in August 2023 telling the DEP in a letter a federal inspection would occur and “appropriate enforcement action†would be taken if the latter agency didn’t act to cause the violation to be corrected.
The DEP said in an August 2023 letter to the OSMRE’s ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä field office the extension had been “erroneously granted†and wasn’t in accordance with DEP Division of Mining and Reclamation policies.
The DEP noted it had modified the violation notice to a cessation order on Aug. 24, a day earlier, and called the extended violation “an anomaly that will be corrected.†Climatic conditions shouldn’t have been deemed acceptable criteria in extending the violation, the DEP said.
But the DEP objected in the letter to the OSMRE’s measures leading up to the Ten-Day Notice issuance, contending it had issued the notice prior to determining whether the agency was acting in good faith to correct the violation. The OSMRE had acted in “the exact opposite of the spirit of cooperative federalism,†the DEP said in the letter.
Trump OSMRE backed off DEP Justice mine oversightÂ
Late in the Biden administration, the OSMRE threatened via a Ten-Day Notice to seize mine permit enforcement from the DEP over a mine operated by a coal company controlled by the family of Sen. Jim Justice, R-W.Va.
But under Trump, the OSMRE backed off, approving DEP enforcement of a McDowell County mine despite previously indicating it suspected the DEP had violated its own regulation by not revoking the mine’s permit due to the Justice coal company’s failure to start abatement measures for 15 cessation orders.
Pictured in this Jan. 14, 2025 U.S. Office of Mining Surface Reclamation and Enforcement notice to the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection is what the former agency said is an access road at Bluestone Coal Corp.’s No. 45 Mine in McDowell County.
That indication came in a December 2024 notice in which the OSMRE also noted it had reason to believe the DEP failed to comply with its own regulation by not promptly reviewing and acting on patterns of violations at the Bluestone Coal Corp. mine site, noting that 13 cessation orders the DEP issued since February 2024 were still unabated.
But in a February follow-up letter to the DEP, the OSMRE concluded the DEP’s response to its December notice that threatened to take over enforcement at the Poca No. 11 Contour Auger No. 2 Mine was “reasonable and appropriate, with no apparent deviation from the approved program.†The OSMRE told the DEP it planned no further action and would monitor a DEP show-cause hearing process for 12 outstanding show-cause orders on the mine permit.
The OSMRE cited “relevant facts†of enforcement actions the DEP had taken against Bluestone, including patterns of violations the DEP said it identified and show-cause orders it issued after the OSMRE’s December 2024 threat to assume enforcement authority.
Biden OSMRE issued additional notice for Justice mine
The OSMRE issued another threat to seize enforcement over a Justice mine before Trump retook office in January.
The OSMRE issued a Jan. 14 Ten-Day Notice to the DEP finding reason to believe Bluestone failed to apply for inactive status, obtain a reclamation cost bond and start backfilling and regrading within 180 days as required by state statute at its No. 45 Mine in the Tug Fork River watershed in McDowell County.
DEP records indicate no response from the OSMRE since the DEP objected to the notice in March, contending the OSMRE had failed to honor the state’s jurisdiction and that the state had taken action to cause reported mine permit violations to be corrected.
The DEP issued Bluestone a letter in April telling the company it owed $470 for a delinquent civil penalty it levied in November 2024 for ceasing mining and reclamation operations on the No. 45 Mine permit.
In May 2025, the DEP ordered Bluestone to stop all mining activity on the No. 45 Mine permit for what it found to be a company failure to seal all portals, shafts or other openings connecting the surface to underground mine workings when no longer needed for mining.
“Weak laws weakly enforced with weak rules,†Haltom said, “allow chronic polluters to continue endangering communities with impunity.â€
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