Interior Department quietly removes 20-year-old mining cleanup funding rule

A federal rule that required mining companies to follow cleanup standards when using old Treasury money for reclamation projects is being dropped. In practice, this means fewer regulatory hoops for companies doing mine cleanup work — a small loosening that removes what was already dead requirement language.

This is a cleaning-up-the-books move, not a substantive policy shift. The rule being rescinded applied only to funds allocated before October 2007 that were never actually appropriated by Congress — meaning the money never existed in the first place, so the requirement was already meaningless. The interesting part is that OSM received critical comments during the official review period, decided they weren't significant enough to warrant changes, and confirmed the rule anyway. This sets a minor precedent for how the agency handles public pushback on rules it considers settled.