Feds announce $679 million in coal cleanup grants despite recent Congressional cuts to the program
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Eric Dixon [email protected], (865) 202-8688 Feds announce $679 million in coal cleanup grants despite recent Congressional cuts to the program Recent ORVI report shows coal cleanup supports jobs in struggling labor markets in KY LOUISVILLE, Kentucky —— The Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement recently announced the latest round of […]
Breaking down how much Congress cut AML funds by state
In January Congress passed a “minibus” bill that raided $500 million in previously appropriated coal mine cleanup funds to pay for other federal programs. We’re now seeing the first results of that bill: $45.5 million less in mine cleanup funding every year for the next 11 years. Combined with growing inflation, this means fewer jobs […]
Repairing the Damage in Kentucky
Kentucky’s coal mine reclamation market has grown 360% since the BIL, but the need for greater union density & more market competition remains.
Congress is trying to loot America’s fund to clean up dangerous mines
In a “minibus” bill released by the House Appropriations Committee this week, legislators are attempting to loot $500 million from the bipartisan fund used to clean up the country’s land and water polluted by coal mining. The bill would transfer $500 million in previously appropriated cleanup funds to pay for other federal programs. Since 1977 […]
2025 in Review
This year, ORVI and our partners have worked to adapt and respond to an increasingly chaotic, uncertain environment. We’ve quantified stemmed funding flows for federal projects like old oil and gas well decommissioning, traced critical junctures in the storied history—and possibility—of Mon Valley steelmaking, and tracked the surge of new fossil fuel industry offshoots: gas-fired […]
Celebrating 5 years of ORVI
Damage Control: AML Reclamation Funding Freeze Puts Projects, Jobs in Jeopardy
In the past three years, the Department of the Interior has awarded about $3 billion to reclamation agencies across the country for the purpose of cleaning up land and water damaged by the coal industry. Reclamation projects funded by Abandoned Mine Land (AML) grant funding are now in jeopardy, as the Trump Administration has halted […]
2024 in Review
The close of 2024 marks another year of progress and growth for the Ohio River Valley Institute, completing our organization’s fourth calendar year of operation. This year, we added critical new capacity to our staff and expanded our breadth of our research and communications programs with the additions of Operations Manager Stacey Padilla, Senior Communications […]
2023 in Review
Together, a more prosperous, sustainable, and equitable Appalachia is possible. That’s the vision that has geared our data-driven research, guided our outreach and campaigns, and grounded our work in the region’s community and culture ever since the Ohio River Valley Institute’s very beginning. It’s now been more than three years since we laid out our […]
Spotlight: Nadiatu Issaka, 2023 Summer Research Fellow
Nadiatu Issaka joined ORVI’s team in June 2023 as our inaugural Summer Research Fellow. We sat down with Nadiatu at the end of the summer to learn more about her research, her interests in weightlifting and coding, and her motivation for building a better future in Appalachia, in Ghana, and beyond. Where are you […]