The Pointer UW-Stevens Point Student Newspaper
On Feb. 16, President Trump signed the Stream Protection Rule out of existence.
A repeal which was voted for by the Senate and House of Representatives earlier in the month. The rule had only just been passed in December during the final weeks of Obama’s presidency.
The Obama administration had high hopes for the legislation.
In December, the Department of Interior said that the rule would protect 52,000 acres of forest and 6,000 miles of streams over the next twenty years, through surface coal mining regulation. Its purpose was to clarify and update existing legislation which was three decades old.
The rule emphasized that mining companies must restore streams to their previous condition.
Paul McGinley, professor of water resources and University of Wisconsin-Extension water quality specialist, felt that the Stream Protection Rule’s main impact would be an increased focus on monitoring stream condition.
McGinley said, “with this rule, they would have to monitor the stream before, during and after to allow them to make changes if there were changes in water quality,” and added that this “would have been an important advance.”
Senate voted to undo the rule 54-45, with many Democrats voting against the rule’s overturn.
Representative John Yarmuth was one voice in opposition to the repeal, who was particularly concerned about families living in mining regions such as Appalachia.
Yarmuth said that The Stream Protection Rule “would serve as one of the only safety measures that would protect these families from poisoned drinking water, higher rates of cancer, lung disease, respiratory illness, cardiovascular disease, birth defects and the countless negative health effects that plague this region.”
However, the rule was met with backlash by politicians such as Bill Johnson, an Ohio representative who said, “make no mistake about it, this Obama administration rule is not designed to protect streams. Instead, it was an effort to regulate the coal mining industry right out of business.”
Similarly, many view the Stream Protection Rule as redundant legislation intended to burden the coal industry and cite over-regulation as the cause for loss of coal mining jobs.
The coal industry is undeniably in decline, but over-regulation may not be the only culprit.
Jerome Segura III, assistant professor of economics and chief economist for the Central Wisconsin Economic Research Bureau, says that worldwide overproduction, cheap natural gas, and low demand from China make it “unlikely that coal will ever take that place where it once was.”
For better or for worse, the repeal of the Stream Protection Rule keeps coal mining regulations largely unchanged from regulations established decades ago. Since the Stream Protection Rule was repealed just two months after its institution, it is difficult to know what its consequences would have been.
Naomi Albert
Reporter
nalbe203@uwsp.edu
