Oversight Hearing on:

• "Obama Administration’s War on Coal: The Recent Report by the Office of the Inspector General”

Archived Video Webcast:

Member Statements:

The Honorable Doc Hastings
Chairman

Witnesses and Testimony:

PANEL I

Mr. Robert A. Knox
Assistant Inspector General for Investigations
Office of Inspector General
U.S. Department of the Interior

Background:

For over two years, the Committee has been conducting an investigation into the rewrite of this coal production regulation. This unnecessary rewrite, carried out through the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSM) at the Department of the Interior, proposed to dramatically alter a regulation that took over five years of environmental analysis and careful scientific consideration to complete. The Department’s process in rewriting this regulation has been rushed and unorthodox. After tossing aside the 2008 plan, the Department spent millions of taxpayer dollars and hired new contractors to complete a new environmental impact statement, even though one was already completed for the 2008 rule. Those contractors were dismissed after it was publicly revealed that the Administration’s new proposed regulation would cost 7,000 jobs and cause economic harm in 22 states. The Administration has spent five years and over $9 million taxpayer dollars working on this rewrite, but has failed to even publish a draft rule. In September 2012, the Committee released its own report on this issue entitled, “President Obama’s Covert And Unorthodox Efforts to Impose New Regulation on Coal Mining and Destroy American Jobs.”

For the Full Department of Interior Investigative Report of OSM Environmental Review click here.

Related Documents:

• Full Committee Hearing Notice - December 30, 2013
• Full Committee Hearing Witness List - January 7, 2013