How our country and the world have changed since President Jimmy Carter sat in the Rose Garden on Aug. 3, 1977, and signed the Federal Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act!

It is difficult for younger generations to comprehend (or even care about) the intense emotions that fueled public debate in the 1970s over an issue that many then characterized as "the environment versus coal." Most of the leading national characters in the debate are long gone.

So, as we mark the 25th anniversary of the Office of Surface Mining, it might be interesting to recall the mood of the nation at the time Congress and President Carter added an extremely controversial regulatory program to Interior's natural resource stewardship responsibilities.

Throughout the 1970s, the nation feared and competed with the USSR and China. Our overriding international goal was containing Communism and that focus shaped our national policies and many domestic concerns. In the early years of the decade, the Vietnam War was at its height and on everyone's mind. The Watergate scandal, however, would soon dominate discussion. Meanwhile, the environmental movement continued to gain strength from the social revolution of the late 1960s.

In 1973, Middle Eastern sheiks imposed an oil embargo that created great public turmoil. As long lines of cars snaked their way to service stations, national leaders called for rapid research into fuel efficient cars and energy conservation. A general anxiety prevailed about how the oil embargo would effect our economy and our war readiness in the event the Communist countries chose to take advantage of our energy plight. Our new president, Gerald Ford, introduced "WIN" buttons to urge us to "Whip Inflation Now" as prices skyrocketed and interest rates began to soar.

Because of the outcry of even moderate citizens and environmental groups against the inadequacies of strip mine regulation in most states, the Nixon administration had, in March, 1973 publicly supported federal legislation to regulate surface mining in the United States. Russell Train, chief of Nixon's Counsel on Environmental Quality, characterized the bill as "strong legislation."

Feelings about the practice of strip mining had been running high for a number of years. Representative Ken Hechler of West Virginia had urged complete abolition of surface mining, saying "the hills of Appalachia are bleeding. . . a revolution is brewing in America. The people are not going to stand by any longer while strip miners rip up their homeland." But negative reaction to the proposal abounded. Senator John Melcher of Montana called the administration bill "gutless" and said "it smells so bad it must be dead and should be buried as quickly as possible."

Senator Mike Mansfield of Montana, then the Senate majority leader, promised the Senate would work for a strong bill and even suggested that "a moratorium [on strip mining] may be the answer until all of the guarantees and proper mechanisms are in their place." Senator Henry Jackson of Washington state, who was chairman of the Senate Interior and Insular Affairs Committee, said he was "confident that this session of Congress will see a federal regulatory law enacted."

Meanwhile, a delegation from the Interstate Mining Compact Commission endorsed the administration's "New Federalism" approach of giving control to the states while setting minimum national standards. I was Pennsylvania's delegate on the commission; other delegates represented North Carolina, Oklahoma, Kentucky, South Carolina, and West Virginia.

I was soon recruited, with the concurrence of Pennsylvania's Governor Milton Shapp, to work with several House and Senate committees to fashion a bill that would allow state primacy, while advancing programs that would attack the problem of abandoned mine lands, which was and still is particularly rampant in Pennsylvania. Congressman Mo Udall (who passed away last year) championed the bill in the House. Louise Dunlap, director of the Environmental Policy Center, worked tirelessly to coordinate the nationwide efforts of citizen and environmental groups' to help shape the legislation.

After extensive public hearings and work by the congressional committees, a measure to regulate surface mining-S. 425-was passed by the 93rd Congress in 1974. But President Ford vetoed the bill on Dec. 30, saying he was not convinced that federal legislation was necessary and that it would hurt the nation's economy. Undaunted, the 94th Congress passed H.R. 25 in 1975, which tried to meet some of President Ford's concerns. It too was vetoed.

In 1976, H.R. 2, and its companion measure, Senate Bill S.7, amended H.R. 25 by including a Small Operators' Assistance Program (now known as SOAP) to meet the concerns of small and medium sized operators who would have difficulty complying with some of the water and soil sampling requirements for permit applications. The proposed legislation also made exploratory permits optional in the states and gave the states flexibility in setting permit fees. The revised measure generally reduced the amount of information required in the applications, limited the notice requirements, and allowed for informal procedures on bond release.

By this time, President Carter had taken office and signaled that he would sign H.R. 2, should it pass. Dissenting congressmen and senators, though few in number, expressed their views strongly. They cited President Carter's call to Congress for "courageous decisions" to solve the energy crisis which he had termed "the greatest domestic challenge that our nation will face in our lifetime." Opponents of the legislation maintained that it trampled states' rights, would destroy small business, and invite endless litigation. They argued that it would increase federal power and consumer costs, while reducing coal production when every energy source was vital to the nation.

Leaders of congressional oversight committees, however, said the hearings and field trips they had conducted confirmed that the environmental and social problems caused by surface mining had to be addressed. One committee report indicated that 1) acid drainage has ruined 11,000 miles of streams; 2) prime hard wood forest and wildlife habitat were being destroyed; 3) productive farmland was being degraded; 4) landslides, erosion, and siltation were polluting streams; 5) perpetually burning mine waste dumps were fouling the air; 6) and that coal mining in America had left a crippling mark on the communities that labored most to produce the energy.

The committee concluded that the nation could not withstand the environmental devastation that would occur with the anticipated surge in coal mining and that the "enormous" social costs of mining should be included in the costs of the coal mining business. If there ever was a time to regulate the industry, the committee report argued, it was during a period when coal demand and prices were expected to soar-making additional environmental protection affordable. The bill was passed overwhelmingly by Congress and signed by President Carter on Aug. 3, 1977.

The Tough Part

The Federal Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, of course, called for the establishment of the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement in the Department of the Interior. I was nominated by President Carter to be the first director of that office, but had to wait many months for Senate confirmation.

In the meantime, a small task force of experts from various Interior and other agencies began the enormous task of getting the program underway. This involved not only administrative and planning duties, such as acquiring the space and resources for the anticipated 1,000-employee organization, but also concurrently writing and promulgating interim regulations which had to be adopted, by law, within 90 days of passage of the act.

This was a near impossible task. To make the chore even more daunting, the appropriation of funds for the office was delayed. The request was included in the general federal budget that was being debated as Congress considered the merits of producing the B-2 Bomber. This delay prevented us from having the financial resources to begin making firm commitments to potential employees and acquiring space for the regional, district, and local offices that were necessary throughout the country.

We had only one year, until August, 1978 to promulgate and publish regulations for a permanent regulatory program. Also, all mines were to comply with the interim regulations within nine months of enactment, which would require inspections, enforcement, and oversight of state actions.

The entire experience was fascinating! The fact that we even came close to meeting all of these timetables was miraculous. I attribute the success we had to the hardest working group of employees I have ever seen in either government or the private sector. Those who worked so hard included my Deputy Director Paul Reeves, Assistant Directors Tony Head, David Maneval, Carl Close, Dick Hall, Chuck Beasley, Don Crane, Wes Booker, Dave Short, Ed Imhoff, Ray Lowrie, Pat Boggs, Bob Biggi and the Division of Surface Mining within the Solicitor's Office, headed by Bill Eichbaum and his staff of dedicated attorneys.

Bill Eichbaum was succeeded as associate solicitor by a very able Bob Uram, who subsequently served as OSM director. Assistant Secretary Joan Davenport, to whom I reported, couldn't have been more helpful and supportive as was Secretary Cecil Andrus. On the whole, the career civil servants and technical experts we relied on were excellent and did an outstanding job.

The national and state coal associations worked hard at their jobs-to influence the program development and regulation writing process as much as possible. In general, I found that most of the associations were very helpful in pointing out where our regulations might exceed the intent of the legislation and trying to amend some language to make it more practical in the field. The citizens and environmental groups kept our feet to the fire, quickly pointing out every aspect of our regulations and program which might not be as stringent as they anticipated.

The most painful process to me was dealing with the states' mining administrators, many of whom were friends and long-time acquaintances. Because most of them were being pulled in all directions by their citizens, legislatures, governors, and the industry, they attempted to achieve accommodations with our office that would make their lives a little easier back home. As a former state administrator myself, I understood their concerns and what they were going through. In many cases, our office simply could not meet their concerns because of the specific language in the act.

It was never a secret that the act was structured with a general distrust that the states would establish adequate regulatory programs without the specificity written into the law. In fact, in the legislative history report of the act, the committee explains why it needed specificity. For example, it went to great pains to define "reclamation" so that it would have consistent meaning. The report also explains why the legislation could not frame performance standards in terms of general objectives and that it chose to cast them in terms more detailed than those generally found in regulatory legislation.

The committee said "in choosing a middle path, the committee is mindful of the past failures on the state level, and thus bases its approval of H.R. 2 on the expectation that federal regulations . . . will fully implement the environmental performance standards. Obviously, the mere reproduction of statutory environmental performance standards in the regulations would be inadequate."

Many of my friends in the states had difficulty living with this concept and had hoped that each state could individually interpret the federal law with it own regulations, rather than use our federal regulations, which were intended to assure some measure of general uniformity among the states.

This controversy subsequently resulted in introduction of the so-called "Rockefeller Amendment" that was conceived by then Governor Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia. It was intended to amend the federal surface mining act to allow states to individually interpret the federal law and write their regulations based on each interpretation. This was very discouraging to us because some of the allies of the original legislation found it necessary to support this proposed amendment. At that time, any resistance to "federal bureaucracies" was very popular back home, so there were few political downsides to supporting the amendment. But because supporters of the original act considered the amendment emasculating, Congress soundly defeated it.

Some elements in the coal industry and in some states continued their loud assault on the law, the regulations, and the program, and those assaults together with similar ones against other federal programs helped to exacerbate an anti-federal sentiment that was growing nationally and ultimately helped to springboard Ronald Reagan to the presidency.

Our office recognized early that some of our regulations would require revisions when we received more feedback from states, as they acquired "primacy" and initiated their state programs. In fact, we had a committee actively working on revisions at the time the Carter Administration came to an end. Although much publicity surrounded the regulatory rewrite of James Watt's administration in the Department, not many of the substantial changes they produced were upheld by the courts. The net effect of that rewrite on the program, I believe, was not that great.

Federal oversight of this program is crucial. As a former state administrator and enforcer, I recognize how the attitudes towards certain state programs and funding of those programs depends on who sits in the governor's chair. It is not in the best interest of the coal industry, environmental protection, state economics, or employment stability to once again allow variances in enforcement from state to state. Such volatility threatens the all-important parity among the states in the mining and marketing of coal.

The program has come a long way in the last 21 years. I believe my able successors each contributed positively to the accomplishments of the national and state programs. I hope our early efforts made their jobs a little easier. As long as OSM continues to listen to the states, their citizens, and the industry for reasonable solutions to problems as the times and technologies change, then OSM will never become an anachronism.