OFFICE OF SURFACE MINING For Release October 1, 1997 Jerry Childress (202) 208-2719 jchildre@osmre.gov OSM ISSUES NEW OVERSIGHT DIRECTIVE, I&E DATA REPORT Kathy Karpan, Director of the Interior Department's Office of Surface Mining (OSM), today released a revised version of OSM Directive REG-8, "Oversight of State Regulatory Programs", for evaluation year 1998. The revised directive refines and adjusts policies, procedures, and responsibilities originally established in January 1996, and amended in June 1996, for evaluating state regulatory programs for coal mining operations. . Karpan said that the latest version incorporates changes recommended in a report by the OSM-State Oversight Steering Committee which met in April and June to review comments on the new policy from state and OSM personnel involved in oversight, as well as from citizens and industry groups. "The committee didn't recommend any major changes to the policy," Karpan said. "They just recommended some clarifications and provided additional guidance on issues that OSM stakeholders found confusing, including, the definition of off-site impacts, and how to quantify and measure them, and reclamation results measurement." "I am pleased with the success of the oversight program and encouraged by the Steering Committee's positive report on its implementation," Karpan said. "I am approving the Committee's recommendations, and releasing a revised directive which is effective for all oversight activities beginning on October 1, 1997." "The new oversight strategy, developed by the Committee and adopted by OSM, now centers on the successes of states in meeting the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act's goal of protecting the public and the environment against off-site impacts to land and water and achieving prompt, effective reclamation of land mined for coal," Karpan said. Karpan added: "The new approach has already resulted in more meaningful oversight. OSM's new oversight strategy allows the Agency to focus its limited resources on those program aspects that have the greatest influence on actual on-the-ground conditions in a State. "By any measure, the initial results of the new oversight process are positive," Karpan said. "OSM and the States are making significant progress in targeting those topics and program activities that present the best opportunity for environmental improvement and the best means of preventing adverse impacts on society and the environment . Furthermore, OSM and the States are engaged in continuing efforts to identify common goals and direct state and federal resources in cooperative, evaluative efforts toward more meaningful oversight." "I intend to keep the Steering Committee in place and encourage all stakeholders to continue to submit comments and suggestions on the directive and its implementation to them for review," Karpan said. Karpan also approved a separate document, prepared by a team of OSM and State personnel, which sets forth the Federal and State inspection and enforcement data OSM intends to collect and report. "Collecting and reporting inspection and enforcement data by States and OSM is an important matter to OSM's stakeholders, as well as meeting our own data needs," Karpan said. "We've taken a good look at our data needs as a result of changes to oversight and identified the information we believe is necessary to supply OSM's customers with solid data that demonstrates the size and scope of regulatory programs, as well as the level of activity under those programs," she added. All comments and requests for additional information or copies of Directive REG-8 and the Inspection and Enforcement Data Team report should be directed to Richard Bryson, Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, Room 211, 1951 Constitution Ave, NW, Washington D.C. 20240, telephone (202) 208-2776, fax (202) 219-3111, e-mail rbryson@osmre.gov. -DOI-