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 the ability of states and tribes to fund new projects and may have even frozen the ability to use funds for cleanup projects that were already started before the funding freeze.
It takes significant time for state agencies to identify and design reclamation projects, bid them out to private construction contractors, and for those contractors to complete them. Most AML grants come with a five-year window for completion. There are dozens—if not hundreds—of ongoing mine reclamation projects across the country, launched in recent years and funded with grants awarded in those years. There are also many projects that state and tribal agencies plan to fund with their previously awarded reclamation funding– because not all of those funds are spent yet.
As an example, Kentucky was awarded about $165 million in standard AML and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) AML grants in 2022 and 2023. The Commonwealth spent an estimated $70 million on AML projects in those two years, so a lot of the funds from the grants awarded in those years remains available to be expended—and the state is working hard to get more projects off the ground with that money.
But now reclamation agencies have been locked out of funding. On January 27 the Trump administration issued a memo that ordered the temporary federal funding freeze, which officials at the federal agency overseeing reclamation funds, the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE), have referenced as an order to stop work on programs with funds from the bipartisan infrastructure law. Officials at agencies in Colorado and New Mexico have said that they are locked out of accessing their mine reclamation funds, as of February 11.
Often new reclamation projects–which can’t move forward at the moment, based on the comments from OSMRE – are emergencies that operate on a razor-thin time margin.
When a landslide from an abandoned surface mine collapses on your home or an old underground mine moves the foundation of your house or an old mine portal has a blowout and floods your town with water from an underground mine pool, state agencies must act quickly. That could be hard to do—or impossible—now that drawdown accounts aren't accessible to state officials.
It’s not just new projects that could be at risk. Projects that have already been started may also be in jeopardy, though the reporting on whether states and tribes can access funds for ongoing reclamation is unclear at the moment.
In addition to the $3 billion that’s already been awarded to states and tribes in recent years, another $4 billion is projected to be awarded over the next four years, based on spending authorization and a distribution formula established in the BIL. If the mine reclamation program were to be targeted by the Trump Administration for an extended freeze, then this money may also be kept from states and tribes.
In a 2021 ORVI report, we estimated that every $1 million spent on mine reclamation supports about 5.25 direct jobs at construction companies and state and federal agencies. [This jobs estimate is not based on input-output modeling but on a straightforward jobs analysis outlined in the report.] Analysis by multiple researchers using IMPLAN has estimated that about 7.25 jobs per million dollars may additionally be supported by the indirect and induced economic impacts of mine reclamation spending.
If we assume 4.7 direct jobs per $1 million (a slightly lower value than in the 2021 report, given relevant changes in the program and the economy in recent years), this implies that the roughly $850 million in annual standard AML and BIL grants supports around 4,000 direct jobs nationwide —mostly in occupations such as civil engineering and construction labor. [Separate IMPLAN modelling similarly estimates that around 4,000 direct jobs are supported by this level of reclamation spending.] And if the ripple effects estimated by prior research using IMPLAN modelling are accurate, another 6,000 jobs may also be supported by the induced and indirect impacts of these reclamation projects.
Freezing funding for the AML program as the Trump Administration has done will only serve to reduce the efficiency of the program and limit or delay the job-supporting work the program enables. Instead of targeting program funding, those seeking reform should focus instead on the following:
- implementing strategies that could speed up the completion of AML-funded projects;
- reducing reclamation costs by bundling smaller, similar projects together into larger contracts;
- creating safeguards to make sure irresponsible companies can’t access AML funds; and
- limiting the flexibility of certified AML states to spend AML funds on non-AML projects.
The AML program is good for our communities, our workers, and our economy– restricting states' access to AML funds is a step in the wrong direction.