Word: stripping
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...pieces of legislation have started more arguments than the various bills Congress has considered to regulate strip mining of coal-a method that accounts for more than half the 600 million tons of coal produced annually in the U.S. Environmental groups, ranchers and farmers favor such a law; they are dismayed by the landslides, soil erosion, water pollution and impairment of natural beauty that often result from the stripping away of tons of topsoil to get at rich coal seams lying just beneath the earth's surface. Energy industries argue that to achieve some form of energy self-sufficiency...
Congress and the White House cannot agree either. President Ford pocket vetoed a strip-mining bill last December, but later said that he would sign it if 27 changes were made. Last week Congress voted overwhelmingly to send an only slightly modified bill back to the White House. Administration officials have hinted at another veto, but the chances of the bill becoming law are nonetheless fairly strong. So many Senators favored the bill that the Senate last week did not bother to take a count, but passed it by voice vote. In the House, the bill passed by a margin...
...Strip-mined land must be returned to its "approximate original contour" and restored to a condition capable of supporting whatever uses it had prior to mining (farming, grazing, recreation). Operators are responsible for revegetating the land, as well as for replenishing the quantity and quality of local water resources...
...Operators must pay 35? for every ton of strip-mined coal, and 15? for every deep-mined ton, into a new fund for reclamation of abandoned mines. The aim is to restore some 100 million acres of already stripped land, primarily in Appalachia where deep hillside gashes mark worked-out steep-slope mines...
...Anyone adversely affected by strip-mining operations may bring suit against the U.S., the state, the operator or the regulatory authorities, including the Secretary of the Interior...