Interior Department

Interior Department Interior land management, fish and wildlife. Geological Survey, mines, surface mining and reclamation... 

In 1965 the Water Quahty Act established a new trend in water pollution control. It provided that the states set water quality standards in accordance with federal guidelines. If the states f ed to do so, the standards would be set by the federal government subject to a review hearing. In 1966, the Clean Water Restoration Act transferred the Feder Water Pollution Control Administration from the Department of Health, Education and Welfare to the Department of the Interior. It also gave the Interior Department the responsibility for the Oil Pollution Act. 

Interior Department Inspector General Earl Devaney reported that he found no criminal intent in the employees actions, and the Justice Department declined to prosecute them. However, he said the USFWS failure to administer meaningful punishment showed the service s bias against holding] employees accountable for their behavior. 9... 

EPA and Interior Department regulations on mining and burning of coal and on production of shale oil, for instance, run directly counter to Energy Department programs to encourage the use of coal and to develop domestic resources of liquid hydrocarbon fuels. 

But then the MacDonald scandal erupted, as a result of the work of the Center for Biological Diversity, and the lynx decision became one of seven cases in which manipulation of the underlying science was so clear that the head of the fish and wildlife service reluctantly conceded they had become a blemish on the scientific integrity of the Interior Department. The question of critical habitat for the lynx was reopened. In February 2008, the agency once again proposed designating a large protected habitat for the lynx that would encom-... 

In 2001 and 2002 it overturned unlawful policies of the U.S. Interior Department that allowed the government to indefinitely delay adding threatened species to the official list of animals protected by the Endangered Species Act. 

On October 1,2011, the Department of the Interior reorganized the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement and established two new, independent bureaus—BSEE and BOEM. http //www.doi. gov/news/pressreleases/Interior-Department-Completes-Reorganization-of-the-Former-MMS.cfm. 

A contentious issue was the presence on state pollution control boards of individuals who worked for regulated entities. The relative lack of state enthusiasm for enforcing the early laws, coupled with the structural complexity of federal enforcement, meant that water quality protection initiatives were extremely limited or inefficient in practice. The latter was shown in the Interior Department s fruitless attempts to enforce an action against a New Jersey chemical company in 1970. 

The very forceful penalties prescribed for violation of the Mine Act did not, for the most part, originate with that law in 1977. Rather, they were introduced under a predecessor statute, the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969. A large portion of the Labor Department s existing Mine Act interpretations grew out of the 1969 Coal Act. That Act was enforced by the United States Department of the Interior, and specifically by the Bureau of Mines (later the Mining Enforcement and Safety Administration [MESA]) within the Interior Department. 

OSHA was not given jurisdiction over coal mines or noncoal mines. That is because, as indicated above, there already were specialized laws for mines and these laws were enforced by the Secretary of the Interior. The law for noncoal mines was called the Federal Metal and Nonmetallic Mine Safety Act of 1966 (1966 MetaVNonmetal Act). This law did not have the same degree of formidable enforcement mechanisms as were introduced in the 1969 Coal Act, but it did provide for comprehensive rulemaking and inspections by the Interior Department. Standards promulgated under the 1966 Metal/Nonmetal Act were, in many cases, advisory rather than mandatory, and the law did not provide for civil penalties. 

The AEC sent its draft report to the Bmeau of the Budget in mid-September. Initial reviews by the Bureau staff and by the President s Science Advisory Committee indicated concern over the report s emphasis on the urgency of the need for atomic power. Wiesner, who had always been lukewarm on the idea of such a report, was particularly outspoken in expressing this view. Budget director Bell decided to circulate the report to the State and Interior departments and to the Federal Power Commission for their reactions before making a decision on disposition of the document. After he discussed the report with Haworth and Wilson, the AEC redrafted and resubmitted it. The new draft incorporated a somewhat changed tone, but the conclusions remained essentially the same as in the September version. The president released it on 20 November, nearly three months after its deadline. ... 

Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, Excess Spoil, Coal Mine Waste, and Buffers for Perennial and Intermittent Streams, 73 Fed. Reg. 75,814 (2008) Duffy, Valley, 145,177 Interior Department Says Final Rule Clarifies Disposal of Coal Mining Waste Near Streams, 39 BNA Env. Rept. 2451 (2008) (mining industry delighted) Elizabeth Shogren, Mining Damage in Appalachia Extensive, U.S. Finds, EAT, May 30, 2003, at A32. 

---