WASHINGTON— The Trump administration’s Department of the Interior has issued a proposal to roll back improvements made in 2024 to a rule that allows the public to request federal inspections of coal mines to address environmental, health and safety issues when states fail to force coal companies to correct violations. The rule is crucial for communities that often find state regulatory enforcement lacking.

The Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement updated the “Ten-Day Notices and Corrective Action” rule in 2024 under the Biden administration to reinstate long-standing public engagement measures that had been gutted under the first Trump administration. As was expected by advocates, the Trump administration is now taking steps to restore its previous short-lived rollback.

“The 10-day notice rule is the backbone of mining enforcement; the Trump administration rescinding this rule is just another move by this administration to strip power away from our communities and hand it over to big corporations,” said Bonnie Swinford, campaign strategist at Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal. “Without the 10-day notice rule, toxic spills will fester, dangerous mines will go unrepaired, and at the end of the day, the coal companies responsible will get to wipe their hands and walk away from the messes they created. We deserve better and more protections from toxic mines, not erosion of these critical public health safeguards.”

“Coalfield communities rely on the 10-day notice rule as a critical safeguard when state regulators fail to act. It’s our lifeline to federal oversight and accountability. Weakening it silences the very voices most harmed by mining violations — and that’s unacceptable,” said Aimee Erickson, executive director of Citizens Coal Council.

“Trump wants to let states off the hook for systematically failing to enforce federal coal mining laws within their borders,” said Perrin de Jong, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “It’s the failure of states to properly enforce these laws that’s responsible for most of the illegal coal mining pollution in the United States. Our beleaguered waterways and imperiled aquatic wildlife need more protection, not less.”

“For decades, this rule, in more or less its current form, has helped residents of coal mining communities ensure that their corporate neighbors do not pollute the air and water,” said Willie Dodson, coal impacts program manager at Appalachian Voices. “The administration’s rewrite of this rule will do nothing but eliminate protections for everyday people in order to benefit those who profit from destructive, polluting, reckless coal mining practices. Appalachian Voices will continue to use the 10-day notice process with and on behalf of our members for as long as it is in place, and we will resist any efforts to gut it.”

Under the 1977 Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, when the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement receives information from a citizen of a possible violation that is not immediately harmful, the local state regulatory agency is given 10 days to take inspection and enforcement action to correct the violation, or provide good cause why it didn’t do so. If the state doesn’t act or provide good cause, federal agencies can then step in to address the violation.

In September 2024, 14 states sued the agency in an effort to gut the rule in the courts. Later that month, a coalition of community conservation groups including Citizens Coal Council, Appalachian Voices, the Sierra Club and the Center for Biological Diversity intervened to defend the rule, represented by Kentucky Resources Council. It is expected that that litigation will be stayed, or put on hold, for the duration of the new rulemaking process that is now set in motion.