Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement Office October 2008 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

We, the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSM), are announcing the availability of a final environmental impact statement (FEIS). The FEIS analyzes the potential impacts of a rule concerning excess spoil, coal mine waste, and stream buffer zones.

We are announcing a rescission of a required amendment that we imposed, in modified form, upon the Pennsylvania regulatory program (the ``Pennsylvania program'') under the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 (SMCRA or the Act). We had modified a previous version of the required amendment, which we originally imposed in 1991. The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, and the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, on remand from the Third Circuit, set aside our termination of the 1991 required amendment. We are rescinding the modified required amendment because under those court actions, no action on our part was necessary to implement the Courts' orders.