Office Surface Mining Reclam Enforc OSMRE
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.mediamatters.org/donald-trump/coal-proponent-attacked-federal-regulator-being-run-radical-environmentalists-now-hes</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In a familiar “fox guarding the henhouse” move, the Trump administration has dispatched former coal association president and conservative commentator Christian Palich to a federal coal mine regulator he previously claimed was “unaccountable” and filled with “unelected” and “radical environmentalist bureaucrats.”</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Palich, the former president of the Ohio Coal Association</b>, has described himself as a “leading, national voice” on energy issues. He has appeared in the media to praise President Donald Trump for rolling back environmental regulations and has also<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> tweeted anti-environmental propaganda, including that climate change is “junk science” and the Sierra Club wants to “kill jobs & destroy families for a phony cause.” From 2017 to early 2019, he worked as an official at the Environmental Protection Agency. </span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>On July 30, Media Matters first reported that Palich had recently begun working as a senior adviser for the Department of the Interior</b>. E&E News subsequently reported that<b style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"> Palich is specifically working at the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE or OSM), which is under Interior’s jurisdiction. </b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">OSMRE’s stated mission is to clean up “millions of acres of pre- Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (SMCRA) abandoned mine lands and the return of post-SMCRA mined lands to productive and beneficial use.” Palich has participated in weekly meetings with Interior Secretary David Bernhardt and other senior Interior Department officials since June, according to publicly released secretarial calendars. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In addition to his record of climate denialism, Palich has previously fought directly against the agency where he’s now working. </b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palich frequently attacked OSMRE during the debate and drafting of the Stream Protection Rule, which the agency worked on for much of the Obama administration. The administration finalized the rule in late 2016, which was intended “to prevent or minimize impacts to surface water and groundwater from coal mining.” Congress and the Trump administration then reversed the regulation, giving coal companies “a freer hand in dumping mining debris in streams.” </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2015, Palich complained that it’s “unfortunate the unelected bureaucrats at OSM have ignored the concerns of state regulators and Congress in order to promote a continued radical anti-coal agenda."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a January 2016 interview, he said that all Ohio miners “are at risk because of what the Office of Surface Mining is doing” and claimed that the rule was being pushed “against the will of the people.” </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a February 2016 tweet, he shared a FoxNews.com op-ed by right-wing commentators John Yoo and Dean Reuter and commented: “All great points & being in the #coal industry we see everyday just how unaccountable @EPA, @OSMRE, & @Interior are.” </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palich wrote a July 21, 2016, Columbus Dispatch op-ed claiming that the Stream Protection Rule “is a rule in search of a purpose - one that is more about politics than environmental protection - and from a federal agency that has clearly lost its way.” </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He also claimed that OSMRE wrote the stream rule to create more jobs for itself. In the Dispatch op-ed, he wrote that it “will do more to pad a bureaucratic agency’s budget than protect streams.” And after the rule was revoked in February 2017, Palich tweeted that it “would have made 64% of coal reserves uneconomic & destroyed 280,000 jobs in mining sector. Only creating more bureaucrat oversight jobs.” </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He added in February 2017 that the rule was “devised by radical environmentalist bureaucrats” and “was never about the environment and was always about carrying out the Obama Administration's nonsensical war on coal." </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2017, the administration nominated coal consultant and climate denier Steven Gardner to head OSMRE, prompting criticism from environmental groups. Like Palich, Gardner has also been a vocal critic of OSMRE. He withdrew his nomination in September 2018, citing a long “back and forth with the Office of Government Ethics over the conditions for an ethics agreement.” </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Interior Department also recently appointed William Perry Pendley as the acting director of the Bureau of Land Management. As a right-wing commentator, Pendley attacked his current agency and has argued that the federal government should sell its public lands.</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font><div><a href="https://www.osmre.gov/about.shtm"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.osmre.gov/about.shtm</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Glenda H. Owens is the Deputy Director of the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE). As Deputy Director, Ms. Owens works with the Director to provide executive leadership and direction for the implementation of the requirements of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 (SMCRA).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Under the Surface Mining Act, OSMRE is responsible for working cooperatively with 24 coal-producing states to ensure coal mining and reclamation activities are conducted in an environmentally sound manner that protects citizens and the environment during mining, and to mitigate the effects of past mining through the reclamation of abandoned mines.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ms. Owens oversees the bureau's operational activities, ensuring that it meets the requirements established for Federal agencies by the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management, among other things. Ms. Owens also serves as OSMRE's Chief Financial Officer and is responsible for ensuring the bureau's compliance with the Chief Financial Officers' Act and other financial and business management requirements. Ms. Owens is a member of Interior's Deputies Operating Group, an executive-level body, which focuses on management efficiency and effectiveness of the Department.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Prior to joining OSMRE, Ms. Owens was an Assistant Solicitor in the Interior Department's Solicitor's Office, Division of Mineral Resources. As the Assistant Solicitor for the Division of Mineral Resources, she headed up a legal staff responsible for providing legal services to bureau and departmental officials. She also supervised defensive litigation under SMCRA.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ms. Owens has a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Michigan and a Juris Doctorate from the Howard University School of Law. She is married and has a daughter.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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The letter states that the Department has begun an agency-wide review of its grants and cooperative agreements in excess of $100,000, largely as a result of the Department’s changing budget situation. </span></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The National Academies will go forward with previously scheduled meetings for this project in Kentucky on August 21-23 -- which are allowed to proceed according to the letter -- and encourages the public to attend <a href="http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=8152017&_ga=2.222565277.707320120.1503324467-141596223.1486144204" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">open meetings</a> in Hazard and Lexington on August 21 and 22. The National Academies believes this is an important study and we stand ready to resume it as soon as the Department of the Interior review is completed. We are grateful to our committee members for their dedication to carrying forward with this study.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>The National Academies of Sciences,</b> Engineering, and Medicine </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">are private, nonprofit institutions that provide independent, objective analysis and advice to the nation to solve complex problems and inform public policy decisions related to science, technology, and medicine. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">They operate under an 1863 congressional charter to the National Academy of Sciences, signed by President Lincoln.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Contacts:<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">William Kearney, Executive Director</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Riya V. Anandwala, Media Relations Officer</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Office of News and Public Information</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><a href="tel:(202)%20334-2138" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">202-334-2138</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">; e-mail </span><a href="mailto:news@nas.edu" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">news@nas.edu<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></a><a href="http://national-academies.org/newsroom" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">national-academies.org/newsroom</a></font></p><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">=</font></div></div></div>