44TH LEGISLATURE - STATE OF NEW MEXICO - FIRST SESSION, 1999

REQUESTING THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND CONGRESS TO MAKE THE MORE THAN ONE BILLION FOUR HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS ($1,400,000,000) OF FEDERAL MONEY IN THE ABANDONED MINE LAND TRUST FUND ALREADY EARMARKED FOR ABANDONED MINE RECLAMATION AVAILABLE TO STATES.

WHEREAS, New Mexico has an estimated thirteen thousand hazardous mine openings, sixty-nine miles of degraded streams and more than thirty thousand acres of land that have been adversely affected by previous mining activities; and

WHEREAS, numerous personal injuries, deaths, property damages and environmental concerns have resulted from early mining activities; and

WHEREAS, the mining and minerals division of the energy, minerals and natural resources department estimates it will cost more than three hundred million dollars ($300,000,000) to reclaim and restore these abandoned mine lands; and

WHEREAS, New Mexico now receives only about one million five hundred thousand dollars ($1,500,000) a year from the federal government for abandoned mine land reclamation projects; and

WHEREAS, there is now a balance of more than one billion four hundred million dollars ($1,400,000,000) in the federal abandoned mine reclamation trust fund that is set aside by law to take care of lands adversely affected by early coal mining activities; and

WHEREAS, New Mexico is the thirteenth largest coal producing state in the nation, and coal operators contribute significantly to the fund by paying a special fee for each ton of coal they mine; and

WHEREAS, New Mexico coal mine operators paid more than five million five hundred thousand dollars ($5,500,000) in special coal mining fees in 1998; and

WHEREAS, the unappropriated federal abandoned mine reclamation trust fund balance is increasing at the rate of more than one hundred million dollars ($100,000,000) per year; and

WHEREAS, New Mexico has an eighteen-year record of reclamation success in administering the abandoned mine land program; and

WHEREAS, New Mexico's current undistributed state share of the federal abandoned mine reclamation trust fund is more than thirteen million four hundred thousand dollars ($13,400,000); and

WHEREAS, New Mexico has been working with the western governors' association, the western interstate energy board, the national association of abandoned mine land programs, Indian tribes and other states to free more of these funds to safeguard and reclaim abandoned mine lands; and

WHEREAS, making more funds available to states for abandoned mine reclamation should preserve the interest revenues now being made available for the united mine workers combined benefit fund; and

WHEREAS, the federal office of surface mining, the United States environmental protection agency and congress have not agreed to make more funds available to states for abandoned mine reclamation;

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO that the president of the United States and congress be urged to make the more than one billion four hundred million dollars ($1,400,000,000) of federal money already earmarked for abandoned mine land reclamation available to states to reclaim and make safe our abandoned mine lands; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that copies of this memorial be transmitted to the president of the United States, the presiding officers of each house of congress and all other members of congress.