Shortly after the Trump Administration took office, Congress and the White House repealed the Obama Administration’s Stream Protection Rule, which reverted regulations on surface coal mining to the regulations issued in 1983. The 1983 regulations inadequately protect natural resources because they do not address the coal industry’s drastic advances in mining practices or new scientific data evidencing coal’s adverse environmental effects. This Comment analyzes and compares current regulations and the Stream Protection Rule to illustrate the inadequacies of the regulations in addressing the adverse effects of surface coal mining on natural resources. To address this issue, the federal government needs to enact new laws or mandate agencies to issue new regulations in order to provide federal guidance on how to appropriately and effectively address the inadequacies of current regulations.
