A subcommittee of the House Natural Resources Committee held a hearing today to discuss budget proposals for a variety of Interior Department agencies, including the federal Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement. Coal Tattoo has previously suggested that Committee Chairman Nick J. Rahall, D-W.Va., might use his leadership position to push more of a public discussion about OSMRE’s role in dealing with major coal industry issues in Appalachia such as, well, mountaintop removal.

If you happened to watch the hearing Webcast, perhaps you wondered — as I did — if this subcommittee even knows that part of its job is to provide oversight of OSMRE. Subcommittee Chairman James Costa, D-Calif., ran the hearing and repeatedly butchered agency Director Joe Pizarchik’s name.

At first, it looked like Chairman Rahall wasn’t even going to attend.  I’m told he had back-to-back meetings, but decided to attend when the hearing ran longer than expected. So at the very end, Rahall got a chance to show what issues that OSMRE is dealing with he is concerned about … I’ll let you all read and draw your own conclusions …

Rep. Rahall opening statement:

… Coal has always been under attack. It doesn’t matter the administration it doesn’t matter the time of day, it doesn’t matter what year it is. Coal has consistently been under attack since coal was ever invented or discovered. And it’s not simply from, as current administration critics will claim, not simply from the environmental community. I refer to the huge media blitzes that we all see each and every day, whether it’s print media, TV media, or whatever, by other fossil fuel sources that are clearly anti-coal in their content, when you read what they’re saying. So, let’s be clear about that fact.

Rep. Rahall:

… You in your budget propose to slash and we’ve had this conversation before, state and tribal regulatory grants as you know, primacy states depend on this money to run their regulatory programs. My question is how can you justify this reduction in the current environment?

Director Pizarchik:

Well, Mr. Chairman, the situation we find ourselves in as a country as a whole and with the economic situation and the budget deficit, we had to make some very tough choices in this budget proposal, and one of those tough choices was proposing to reduce funding to the regulatory programs of about $11 million. It’s about 7 percent of the cost of running the programs, and we look at this as doing our part to try to address the budget deficit. And we have been encouraging the states to pass those costs on to recover those costs from the people from whom they provide the services, the regulatory community. I’ve offered to work with them to do that, and this also proposal is also consistent with the administration’s approach of reducing subsidies to fossil fuels, so instead of half of the cost of running the regulatory program coming from the general taxpayers of the united states, it would be for the industry to pay a portion of the costs of the services they receive.

Rep. Rahall:

… Would you agree with me that we could reduce controversy over mountaintop mining if SMCRA permits took into account some of the concerns that are raised, rather than bootstrapping the SMCRA permit at the end of the permit process, when it comes time to determine whether a 404 permit will be issued.

Director Pizarchik:

Yes, Chairman, that’s one of the goals we’re working on within the administration with our sister agencies is to do a better job coordinating in the permitting process between the SMCRA permit and the Clean Water Act permits that are issued by the water programs, whether it’s the state water folks or the Army Corps of Engineers and the EPA.

Rep. Rahall:

So you agree with me, then how can the proposed budget cuts help?

Director Pizarchik:

The proposed budget cuts are designed to try to address with the budget deficit that we have and we’re encouraging the states and offering to work with them to recover a fee for the services that they provide to the regulated community.

Rep. Rahall:

Could you provide our committee information on the deal that you cut with environmental plaintiffs regarding the stream buffer zone rule?

Director Pizarchik:

What we did in that particular circumstance is explain to the plaintiffs that we were working on revising that 2008 rule, and we covered a number of the areas that were under consideration for change and we urged them to place their litigation on hold to give us a chance to revise our rulemaking to go forward. So the litigation is on hold for a temporary basis as we proceed through the rulemaking. We are moving forward with that rulemaking with the goal of advertising or publishing the proposed rule for comment by the end of February of 2011, and then moving on after we receive those comments to a final rulemaking.

Rep. Rahall:

… Are you working with the states on developing a definition of what approximate original contour is, AOC?

Director Pizarchik:

At this time, we are working internally to come up with a definition of more detail. Our plan is that once we have something that we think is ready to be conceptually discussed, we will be talking to the states, in particular we will be going to the states that have most of the mountaintop mining, Kentucky and West Virginia, and running our concepts by them and getting input on that before we proceed with proposed rulemaking.