Trump administration halted a study of mountaintop coal minings health effects

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/08/21/trump-administration-halted-a-study-of-mountaintop-coal-minings-health-effects/

Trump administration halted a study of mountaintop coal mining’s health effects

By Darryl Fears | August 21 at 3:39 PM

The Trump administration’s Interior Department ordered the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine to halt a study of health risks for residents near surface coal mining sites in the Appalachian Mountains.

A statement by the academy said Interior’s Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement dispatched a letter Friday telling it to cease all work by an 11-member committee undertaking the study pending a departmental review of projects costing more than $100,000. The review was prompted “largely as a result of the Department’s changing budget situation,” the statement said.

President Trump proposed to cut $1.6 billion at Interior in 2018, including 4,000 staff positions. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke supported the cuts in a Senate hearing, saying, “This is what a balanced budget looks like.”

The story was first reported by Ken Ward Jr. of the Charleston (W. Va.) Gazette-Mail. Scientists conducting the study said they will carry on with open meetings in Hazard and Lexington, Ky., Monday through Wednesday in the hopes that the review will end soon and that its work be allowed to continue. But the academy said it has no idea about the review’s expected start date and completion.

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http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=8212017

Aug. 21, 2017

Statement Regarding National Academies Study on Potential Health Risks of Living in Proximity to Surface Coal Mining Sites in Central Appalachia

WASHINGTON -- In an August 18 letter, the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement informed the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine that it should cease all work on a study of the potential health risks for people living near surface coal mine sites in Central Appalachia. The letter states that the Department has begun an agency-wide review of its grants and cooperative agreements in excess of $100,000, largely as a result of the Department’s changing budget situation.

The National Academies will go forward with previously scheduled meetings for this project in Kentucky on August 21-23 -- which are allowed to proceed according to the letter -- and encourages the public to attend open meetings in Hazard and Lexington on August 21 and 22. The National Academies believes this is an important study and we stand ready to resume it as soon as the Department of the Interior review is completed. We are grateful to our committee members for their dedication to carrying forward with this study.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine are private, nonprofit institutions that provide independent, objective analysis and advice to the nation to solve complex problems and inform public policy decisions related to science, technology, and medicine. They operate under an 1863 congressional charter to the National Academy of Sciences, signed by President Lincoln.

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