With coal mines across the country closing as the country shifts to cleaner and lower cost sources of electricity, the safeguards that were supposed to guarantee that the mines would be fully reclaimed are proving wholly inadequate. Decades of shortsighted, industry-friendly decisions by mine regulators have cut huge holes into the safety net that was intended to ensure that even abandoned mines would be cleaned up, and the coming wave of mine abandonments promises to overwhelm the system. Rather than own up to these failures and accept responsibility for cleaning up these mines, state regulators are racing to cobble together ad hoc measures that won’t clean up the mines but may shield the states from responsibility. That would lead to a return to the failures of the 1970s, with mine operators once again leaving communities to deal with dangerous mine sites and sources of perpetual pollution. Instead, state regulators should assume responsibility for reclaiming the mines—to protect nearby communities and to get miners back to work—and should then take action to ensure that the individuals who profited from the mines pay their share for the cleanup.
