Article published Dec 13, 2007

Delegations unite to free mine reclamation money

Members of Montana's congressional delegation — two Democrats in the Senate and a Republican in the House — often downplay their differences when discussing what's in the state's best interest.

During a recent visit to Great Falls, in fact, Rep. Dennis Rehberg noted that while there's always a certain amount of tension because of the party difference and the possibility — not being considered, he says — of him challenging one of the senators, he views their working relationship as "very good."

Frequently, on issues from water projects to Amtrak, they are on pretty much the same page.

That was nowhere clearer than this past week when all three jumped down the throat of the federal Office of Surface Mining for hijacking mine-reclamation money aimed for Montana and Wyoming.

Under a measure signed into law last year by the president, the two states were slated to receive more than half a billion dollars in abandoned mine land money — money intended to help clean up thousands of old mines nationwide.

But the agency that administers the program — hammered out after years of wrangling between Western states where coal mining is huge and growing, and Eastern states where the industry is declining and the need for cleanup is huge and growing — decided that rather than paying the money directly to states, it would turn it into a grant program for which states would have to apply.

"When I sell my grain at market," said Sen. Jon Tester, "I don't expect the buyer to hand me a stack of paperwork to fill out or grants to apply for. Montana deserves no less."

"Unfortunately," said Rehberg, "many of the funds dedicated to restoring these mines have been held up by bureaucrats at the Interior Department."

Rehberg joined Wyoming's Rep. Barbara Cubin Tuesday in introducing a bill to "shake loose the needed funding."

Parallel to that, Tester joined Sen. Max Baucus and Wyoming's Republican senators, Mike Enzi and John Barrasso with a Senate version of the bill.

Baucus, chairman of the Finance Committee, said the bill aims to "slice through the bureaucratic roadblock."

"It's baffling to me that these hurdles have been erected," Baucus said.

Enzi, too, chimed in: "Only in the absurd world that is Washington could an agency believe that the word 'payment' means grant. When this bill passes, the confusion should be over and Wyoming will once and for all wash its hands of the bureaucratic shenanigans that have surrounded these funds."

A lot is at stake. Montana is in line to get $58 million; Wyoming, because it mines much more coal, is slated to get 10 times as much.

The lawmakers said they hope to find a way to get the bill passed before the end of the year. We wish them luck.