Howard Griffith: “The Abandoned Mine Land Economic Revitalization Program was created by Hal Rogers a few years ago. It has already borne…”

“The Abandoned Mine Land Economic Revitalization Program was created by Hal Rogers a few years ago. It has already borne promising fruit, delivering environmental cleanup and much-needed economic development to some of the poorest parts of our country, the Appalachian coalfields. In one AMLER Program in my district, we used it to take down highwalls at an old mine, and the area was redeveloped into an industrial site. Likewise, in another place, a public-private partnership--and keep in mind, that means there is a lot of private money. Sometimes counties put money in. It is not just AMLER money, but AMLER money is a big help. In that case, the public-private partnership came in and cleaned up an old coal fines pond. It saved the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement one-third of the estimated cleanup costs, and it was done decades earlier than expected. However, the specter of OSMRE imposing a perpetual Federal interest in every AMLER project is hurting what I believe is a great program. A letter from the region sums it up best. ``Dear Senator Warner: The purpose of this correspondence is to solicit your support and assistance in challenges associated with the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement.'' This is from the Lonesome Pine Regional Industrial Facilities Authority.…”