West Virginia Mining and Reclamation Association v. Babbitt

A group of coal businesses (plaintiff) in West Virginia was subject to regulations in the West Virginia Surface Coal Mining Reclamation Act (WVSCMRA) and the federal Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (SMCRA). The federal government (defendant) enforced the SMCRA, which included approving state mining regulatory schemes like the WVSCMRA. The federal government could approve state regulations so long as they were not inconsistent with the SMCRA. The SMCRA required coal businesses to post bonds for reclamation purposes, which the businesses could recover only after successfully completing reclamation. West Virginia attempted to amend the WVSCMRA to allow for the reclamation bonds to be released if reclamation was being achieved via passive treatment of acid drainage from former mining sites. Passive treatment involved using natural land features (e.g., wetlands) to treat drainage instead of actively managing the drainage. Specifically, West Virginia’s proposed regulation allowed for an operator to recover the bond using passive treatment, which could still require human intervention under some circumstances. Active management, on the other hand, would need to be totally completed before bonds could be recovered. Thus, under the West Virginia system, a coal operator could reclaim its bond while passive treatment was ongoing. The federal government rejected this proposed change on the grounds that it was inconsistent with the SMCRA, which allowed for bonds to be released only upon successful completion of regulation. The coal businesses sued the federal government, claiming that this conclusion was contrary to the SMCRA. The parties cross-moved for summary judgment.