Mr. METCALF.  Mr. President, when Interior Secretary Cecil Andrus appeared
before the Subcommittee on Minerals, and Fuels - now the Public Lands and Resources
Subcommittee - on February 7, 1977, to testify regarding the Surface Mining Control and
Reclamation Act of 1977 (S. 7), he urged early passage of the bill, stressing the importance of
preserving the Nation's prime agricultural lands.  

    S5862 Secretary Andrus has now followed up those intitial comments with a detailed series of
recommendations for improving S. 7.  

    S5862 Among the Secretary's recommendations are the establishing of a 5-year moratorium on
surface mining in prime farmlands, strong endorsement of the principle of return to the approximate
original contour and elimination of all highwalls, addition of a "grandfather" exemption to the
section relating to protection of alluvial valley floors, and the allowance of mountaintop removal
mining without requiring a variance where all spoil is retained upon the mountaintop.  

    S5862 In view of the significance of Secretary Andrus' recommendations, I ask unanimous
consent that his report to the Energy and Natural Resources Committee be printed in the RECORD.  

    S5862 There being no objection, the report was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows: 


    S5862 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, Washington, D.C., April 1, 1977.  

    S5862 HON. HENRY M. JACKSON,  

    S5862  Chairman, Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C.  

    S5862 DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: This letter supplements the Administration's views set forth in
our letter of February 4, 1977, on S. 7, the "Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977."  

    S5862 We strongly support your efforts to provide sound strip mine legislation.  S. 7 provides a
framework for administering a comprehensive, workable, surface mining and reclamation program. 
We would like to present our views and to offer some amendments in addition to those previously
sent which we believe will strengthen the bill.  

    S5862 TITLE II - OFFICE OF SURFACE MINING AND RECLAMATION  

    S5862 This Administration strongly supports the creation of an independent Office within the
Department of the Interior.  In anticipation of passage of the strip mine bill, the Department has
begun to work toward smooth implementation of the bill's provisions and to establish the new Office. 
To allow for the best overall management arrangements, however, we recommend that the statute
not require the Office to report directly to the Secretary and that it be clearly authorized to use the
personnel of other agencies to carry out the program.  

    S5862 TITLE III - ABANDONED MINE RECLAMATION  

    S5862 We suggest provisions to establish State managed abandoned land programs.  We
recommend that until a State's full regulatory program is approved, allocation of its 50% share of
funds not be made and that there be no funding of any State abandoned land program.  Until such
approval is given, the Secretary should also have authority to withhold expenditures for the Federal
abandoned land program for a State under section 305.  This would encourage the States to obtain
approval for a strong State regulatory program rather than allowing a Federal program to be
established for that State.  The Secretary should not be prevented, however, from expending
unearmarked funds within a State where there was not an approved regulatory program; thus in
cases where reclamation work would be urgently needed it could be accomplished.  

    S5862 In order to assure that reclamation is accomplished on abandoned lands as quickly as
possible, section 305 should be changed to insure that the first two objectives of the fund specified in
section 302, the protection of public health and safety and the prevention of continued
environmental harm, be accomplished before money could be spent on public facilities, except for
emergency situations.  

    S5862 The program under section 304, Reclamation of Rural Lands, should be preserved.  This
program will benefit many communities by assuring that the expertise of the Department of
Agriculture in reclaiming disturbed lands is put to good use.  

    S5862 Allocating the reclamation fee money in slightly different proportions would provide
increased money for areas where there are the most severely ditsurbed lands.  We recommend
providing financial assistance for obtaining hydrological data for permit applications of mines
producing under 100,000 tons per year, but doing so on a cost-sharing basis with the operator
providing 25 percent of the amount necessary for data and analysis.  The reclamation fee money
would provide the other 75 percent.  Additionally we recommend adding a provision for cost
recovery in cases where a permit application is not made after the hydrological data financed from
the Fund have been collected and analyzed.  

    S5862 We also are of the view that the 50 percent share reserved for expenditure in the State or
Indian lands where collected should be determined after 10 percent is allocated for hydrological
studies and 20 percent for the Rural Lands Program.  This would provide further funds for States
having the largest amount of abandoned coal mined lands.  Funds reserved to the State or Indian
land where collected should be available also for non-coal mine reclamation.  

    S5862 TITLE IV - CONTROL OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS OF COAL
SURFACE MINING  

    S5862 We support a timetable for implementing the performed standards which provides that
Interior regulations are to be issued three months after enactment; new mines must comply six
months after enactment and existing mines must comply nine months after enactment.  The
permanent regulatory program regulations must be promulgated within a year after enactment.  This
timetable is contingent, however, upon express provision that no environmental impact statement be
required for the Interim program regulations.  For consistency, the Federal and Indian lands program
should also be slated for implementation one year after enactment.  

    S5862 Although the Department does not foresee having to intervene in State regulatory
programs often, the bill currently provides no method of intervention in cases where the State
program may be faltering in only one or two areas short of State program revocation.  In these
instances the Department needs the authority to review selected permits.  We recommend adding a
provision which would permit limited intervention without withdrawing approval of a State
regulatory program.  

    S5862 Large mining operations often need several years to get mining equipment and other
ancillary requirements in place.  The regulatory authority needs to evaluate the proposed mining
operation before site development begins, but at the same time must be in a position to give the mine
operator a permit for a time period adequate for developing a site and obtaining financing.  We
recommend that the time of the first permit be not more than five years after the first removal of
overburden and that removal of overburden must begin within six years issuance of the permit.  If,
however, overburden removal does not begin within three years after issuance, one year prior to
scheduled overburden removal the regulatory authority should be required to obtain such
information as is necessary to determine whether modifications of the permit pursuant to section
411(c) or otherwise are needed.  

    S5862 The Administration supports strong protection for surface owners; surface owner consent
should be required for the entire area covered by a permit application.  For Federal lands this
consent should be written, given before leasing, and available only to the limited class of persons
specified in H.R. 25 in the 94th Congress.  We also recommend that with regard to the compensation
formula provided therein, that fair market value be defined to exclude the value of the coal resource,
as mentioned in our earlier report.  

    S5862 Alluvial valley floors will require strong protection if these important areas are to maintain
their hydrological integrity and usefulness for farming and range use.  In view of this, we believe our
proposed section 410(b)(5) should be revised so as not to exempt undeveloped range lands or small
areas where mining would have a negligible impact on agricultural or livestock production. 
Because information about effects of mining in alluvial valley floors is relatively embryonic and the
administrative determination of where these exemptions would apply may be particularly difficult, it
appears preferable to clearly exclude mining from the alluvial valley floor without land use
exception.  The Administration supports "grandfathering" only those mines which are located in
alluvial valley floors and in commercial production, as specified in our February 4, 1977, letter.  

    S5862 Section 422 relating to the designation of areas unsuitable for surface coal mining,
contains a grandfather exemption to be granted for those operations which have "substantial legal
and financial commitments." We believe the term should be further defined or eliminated from the
statute.  The grandfather clause as written could undermine the integrity of the designation process
and be subject to abuse. 

    S5862 We continue to support the bill's designation of national forests as unsuitable for mining. 
We would also favor authorizing the Secretary to designate critical areas adjacent to the mandatory
designation areas under section 422 in order to protect the integrity of these areas.  In the case of
Federal lands in critical adjacent areas, designation as unsuitable would be mandatory.  In the case
of private or State lands in the critical areas, the Federal government would petition the State to
designate these areas as unsuitable for strip mining, and further, there would be required
consultation between the State and the Secretary for any permit within the critical adjacent area.  

    S5862 Prime agricultural lands have recently become the subject of considerable attention.  The
loss of such agricultural areas as a source of future food production is of as much concern as the
possible loss of coal production resulting from prohibiting mining of these lands.  We therefore favor
an amendment to require restoration of soil productivity for prime agricultural lands.  In addition,
we recommend a five year moratorium on surface mining in prime farmlands in order to provide an
opportunity to determine the ability to restore the productivity of these valuable lands.  An
appropriate grandfather exception would also be provided.  An amendment for prime agricultural
lands protection will be furnished shortly.  

    S5862 Several concerns for essential features of the performance standards set forth in section
415 of the bill deserve emphasis.  We strongly support the principle of return to approximate
original contour.  We believe this concept as defined in section 501(23) properly embraces use of
terracing as an appropriate reclamation technique, whether or not expressly referred to.  Such
terracing must, however, be for drainage purposes only and designed for the best overall
environmental results.  High walls cannot be permitted under any circumstances.  

    S5862 With respect to siltation structures, we are concerned that maintenance responsibility
continue as long as such structures present the possibility of harm.  We therefore support an
amendment strengthening @ 415(b)(10)(C).  

    S5862 We would oppose deleting safety protections provided by the bill. Blasting limitations are
particularly important but further information is needed to ascertain whether additional measures
beyond those provided in @ 415(b)(15) are needed.  We believe a study of blasting requirements
should be undertaken.  

    S5862 S. 7 allows a variance from special performance standards for mountaintop mining where
certain post-mining land uses will obtain.  The most critical feature of mountaintop mining relates to
spoil placement.  Mountaintop mining which retains spoil on top of the mountain does not require
special treatment.  Serious problems are presented, however, by operations using head-of-the-hollow
or valley fill.  For such operations, it is uncertain whether spoil can be placed in an environmentally
sound manner.  Some evidence exists that technology in which spoil is placed in lifts to create a
series of stair stepbenches and french rock drains are used may provide satisfactory protection. In
any event, we believe that placement of spoils on the downslope should be limited to the minimum
and that strong spoil placement standards are needed to insure that there will be no offsite damages. 

    S5862 We support provisions to strengthen the administrative, judicial, and enforcement
provisions of the bill.  Among these are provisions relating to citizen suits and we support
elimination of the amount-in-controversy and diversity of citizenship requirements of these
provisions.  We also believe that attorney's fees should be awarded in the discretion of the court
against any party.For administrative proceedings, discretionary award of attorney's fees is
appropriate against a losing party (not the United States).  In addition, for the permanent
enforcement program, we favor a requirement of monthly partial inspections and full inspections
once each quarter.  We will further review the need for further improvement and updating of the
administrative, judicial and enforcement provisions.  

    S5862 Enactment of this legislation will correct a major deficiency in our overall policy of
environmental protection.  Benefits will directly follow its enactment for protection and
enhancement of water quality, fish and wildlife values and for improved land use, among others.  

    S5862 We attach suggested amendments to deal with the problems outlined and certain other
matters, including those contained in our February 4, 1977, letter to the Committee on S. 7.  

    S5862 Early passage of strong surface mining legislation remains among the highest priorities of
this Administration.  We will be prepared to work with the Committee to achieve this goal.  

    S5862 The Office of Management and Budget has advised that enactment of legislation
conforming to the views set forth above would be in accord with the problem of the President and it
has no objection to the presentation of this report.  

    S5862 Sincerely, CECIL D. ANDRUS,  Secretary.