Citizens Coal Council v. Norton

Congress enacted the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (SMCRA) for the twin purposes of protecting the environment from the effects of surface coal mining and assuring the ongoing availability of coal as necessary for the United States’ energy needs. The statute was intended to encourage underground coal-mining activities as an alternative to surface mining. Accordingly, SMCRA prohibited surface coal-mining operations in certain defined areas, including near public parks, schools, churches, and various other public facilities. SMCRA defined surface coal-mining operations as including “activities conducted on the surface of lands in connection with a surface coal mine or subject to the requirements of section 1266 of this title surface operations and surface impacts incident to an underground coal mine.” Pursuant to her authority under SMCRA, the secretary of the interior (the secretary) (defendant) promulgated a regulation providing that subsidence due to underground coal mining was not included within SMCRA’s definition of surface coal-mining operations, presumably authorizing underground mining even if the resulting surface impacts could affect the protected areas defined in SMCRA, such as parks and schools. The Citizens Coal Council (CCC) (plaintiff) filed a lawsuit in federal district court challenging the regulation as contrary to SMCRA and therefore invalid. The district court ruled in CCC’s favor, holding that the secretary wrongly interpreted SMCRA as excluding subsidence from the definition of surface coal-mining operations. The secretary appealed, arguing that the word operations in SMCRA plainly required an interpretation that surface coal mining be limited to actual mining activities, not just its effects. The secretary also pointed to legislative history suggesting that Congress intended to address subsidence only in an entirely unrelated part of SMCRA. CCC argued that the term operations was supplemented by the follow-up reference to the term surface impacts. CCC also argued that the legislative history supported its interpretation, pointing to a Senate report suggesting that Congress intended surface coal-mining operations to be defined broadly to include surface effects such as subsidence.