FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 16, 2025
CONTACT
Christine Ho, christine.ho@sierraclub.org
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Department of the Interior has issued a proposal to roll back 2024 improvements to the Ten Day Notice Rule, a process that allows citizens to request inspections by federal regulators of environmental and public health and safety issues caused by coal mines when the state fails to take action to force coal companies to correct the 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 Notice Rule in 2024 to reinstate long-standing citizen engagement measures that had been gutted under the first Trump administration, constraining the ability of citizens to advocate for their communities. Under the Biden administration, the agency largely restored the rule to its original and long-standing form. As was expected by advocates, the Trump administration is now taking steps to restore its previous short-lived rollback.
“The Ten 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 Sierra Club Beyond Coal Campaign Strategist Bonnie Swinford. “Without the Ten 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 Ten Day Notice rule as a critical safeguard when state regulators fail to act,” said Citizens Coal Council Executive Director Aimee Erickson. “It’s our lifeline to federal oversight and accountability. Weakening it silences the very voices most harmed by mining violations — and that’s unacceptable.”
“Trump wants to let states off the hook for systematically failing to enforce federal coal mining laws within their borders,” said Center for Biological Diversity Senior Attorney Perrin de Jong. “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 Appalachian Voices Coal Impacts Program Manager Willie Dodson. “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 OSMRE receives information from a citizen of a possible violation that is not an imminent harm situation, 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, OSMRE can then step in to address the violation.
On Sept. 9, 2024, 14 states sued the OSMRE in an effort to gut the Ten Day Notice 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 Ten Day Notice rule-making process that is now set in motion.
