Wyoming Regulatory Program

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR <SUBAGY>Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement</SUBAGY> <CFR>30 CFR Part 950</CFR> <DEPDOC>[SATS No. WY-050-FOR; Docket ID No. OSM-2021-0004; S1D1S SS08011000 SX064A000 223S180110; S2D2S SS08011000 SX064A000 22XS501520]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Wyoming Regulatory Program</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, Interior. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule; approval with exceptions. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> We, the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE), are approving with exceptions an amendment to the Wyoming regulatory program (Wyoming program) under the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 (SMCRA or the Act). Between 1978 and 2007, the Wyoming Legislature enacted a number of revisions to the statutes governing coal exploration by drilling. On March 2, 2016, the Wyoming Environmental Quality Council approved a number of revisions to the rules governing coal exploration by drilling under the Wyoming program. The State submitted this proposal to OSMRE at its own initiative. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Effective February 20, 2024. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Jeffrey Fleischman; Director, Denver Field Division, Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, 100 East B Street, Room 4100; Casper, Wyoming 82602. Telephone: (307) 261-6550. Email: <E T="03">jfleischman@osmre.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Background on the Wyoming Regulatory Program</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Submission of the Amendment</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. OSMRE's Findings</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Summary and Disposition of Comments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. OSMRE's Decision</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VI. Procedural Determinations</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background on the Wyoming Regulatory Program</HD> Subject to OSMRE's oversight, Section 503(a) of the Act permits a state to assume primacy for the regulation of surface coal mining and reclamation operations on non-federal and non-Indian lands within its borders by demonstrating that its program includes, among other things, state laws and regulations that govern surface coal mining and reclamation operations in accordance with the Act and consistent with the federal regulations. See 30 U.S.C. 1253(a)(1) and (7). On the basis of these criteria, the Secretary of the Interior conditionally approved the Wyoming program on November 26, 1980. You can find background information on the Wyoming program including the Secretary's findings, the disposition of comments, and conditions of approval in the November 26, 1980, <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (45 FR 78637). You can also find later actions concerning Wyoming's program and program amendments at 30 CFR 950.10, 950.12, 950.15, 950.16, and 950.20. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Submission of the Amendment</HD> By letter dated June 14, 2021 (Docket ID No. OSM-2021-0004), Wyoming sent us an amendment to its program under SMCRA (30 U.S.C. 1201 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ). We found Wyoming's proposed amendment administratively complete on July 13, 2021. Between 1978 and 2007, the Wyoming Legislature enacted a number of revisions to the statutes governing coal exploration by drilling. The proposed statutory revisions reflect organizational changes at the Wyoming Land Quality Division (LQD), correct a typographical error, provide more detailed instructions for plugging and sealing drill holes, incorporate provisions for the awarding of attorney fees and other litigation costs, and include more detailed instructions for bond release. Additionally, on March 2, 2016, the Wyoming Environmental Quality Council approved a number of revisions to the rules governing coal exploration by drilling under the Wyoming program. The proposed amendment is a state initiative to update Chapter 14 of the LQD Coal Rules and Regulations, which was last revised in 1998. The revised rules were updated to include more detailed directions for plugging and sealing requirements for drill holes. The rules were also updated to include best management practices and standards adopted by the Wyoming State Engineer's Office that conform with accepted best practices by the American Society for Testing and Materials and American Water Works Association, and Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality—Water Quality Division regulations. Other revisions include a list of acceptable grout materials, requirements to plug the entire hole, immediate capping of drill holes, and adding identification numbers to facilitate inspections. Additional formatting and organizational changes were made to Chapter 14. We announced receipt of the proposed amendment in the October 28, 2021, <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (86 FR 59674). In the same document, we opened a public comment period and provided an opportunity for a public hearing or meeting on the adequacy of the amendment. We did not hold a hearing or meeting because none was requested. We received one comment on the amendment. The public comment period closed November 29, 2021. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. OSMRE's Findings</HD> The following are the findings we made concerning the amendment under SMCRA and the federal regulations at 30 CFR 732.15 and 732.17. We are approving with exceptions the amendment as described below. <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Minor Revisions to Wyoming's Rules</HD> Wyoming proposed minor grammatical and organizational changes to Chapter 14 of the LQD Coal Rules and Regulations. Wyoming did not propose any substantive changes to the text of these previously approved regulations. Because the proposed revisions are minor and result in no substantive changes to the Wyoming program, we are approving the changes and find that they are no less effective than the corresponding federal regulations at 30 CFR parts 700 to 887. The specific, minor revisions to the Code of Wyoming Rules and the federal regulation counterparts are as follows: • Section 1 heading: minor grammatical change; • Section 2 heading: minor grammatical change; • Section 3 heading: minor grammatical change; • Subsection 1(a): statutory cross-reference update; • Subsection 1(g): statutory cross-reference update; • Subsection 2(a): organizational change; • Subsection 4(d): minor grammatical change; • Subsection 3(c): organizational change; • Subsection 3(f): organizational change and minor grammatical change; • Subsection 3(a)(ii): organizational change; and • Subsection 5(a): minor revision to date of statutory enactment. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Revisions to Wyoming's Rules That Have the Same or Similar Meaning as the Corresponding Provisions of the Federal Regulations</HD> Wyoming also proposed a number of substantive revisions to Chapter 14 of the LQD Coal Rules and Regulations that have the same or substantially similar meaning as the corresponding provisions of the federal regulations. Therefore, we are approving them: • Subsection 1(b): <E T="03">Casing and sealing of drilled holes</E> [30 CFR 816.13]; • Subsection 2(a): <E T="03">Casing and sealing of drilled holes</E> [30 CFR 816.13]; • Subsection 1(g): <E T="03">Coal exploration public availability of information requirements</E> [30 CFR 772.15 (b)]. Within Subsection 1(g), Wyoming also updated a statutory reference to W.S. 35-11-1101 such that 2015 is reflected as the year of enactment. Since OSMRE's approval of the existing language at Chapter 14, Subsection 2(b) (recodified at Subsection 1(g) as part of this amendment), W.S. 35-11-1101 has been revised with the addition of Subsection (c). This occurred during the 1994 Wyoming legislative session. Subsection (c) reads: “In any suit under this section or the Public Records Act, W.S. 16-4-201 <E T="03">et seq.,</E> to compel the release of information under this act, the court may assess against the state reasonable attorney fees and other litigation costs reasonably incurred in any case in which the complainant has substantially prevailed and in which the court determines the award is appropriate.” Wyoming notes its revisions to Subsection 2(b) are part of its compliance with 30 CFR 840.14 (Availability of records). In this case, Wyoming references W.S. 35-11-1101 to highlight an exception to the requirements of 30 CFR 840.14. Wyoming's incorporation of the requirements at 30 CFR 840.14, including references to W.S. 35-11-1101, was approved by OSMRE on December 4, 2019. See 84 FR 66311; • Subsection 2(b): <E T="03">Coal exploration performance standards</E> [30 CFR 815.15(i)]; • Subsection 2(c): <E T="03">Coal exploration performance standards</E> [30 CFR 815.15(i)]; • Subsection 2(i): Wyoming revised the requirements of Chapter 14, Section 2 by adding Subsection (i). Wyoming's proposed language closely mirrors pertinent portions of the federal counterpart provision at 30 CFR 816.13 (the additional requirements of 30 CFR 816.13 are constructed at LQD Coal Rules and Regulations Chapter 4, Subsection 2(p), and Chapter 10, Subsection 4(j)). The language proposed for addition would provide for appropriate backfill of all drill holes to the ground surface to ensure the safety of people, livestock, wildlife, and machinery in the area. Similarly, the drill hole casing and sealing federal regulations at 30 CFR 816.13 require that exploration or other holes be cased, sealed, or otherwise managed to ensure the safety of people, livestock, fish and wildlife, and machinery in the permit and adjacent area. Where the federal language specifies “in the permit area and adjacent area” Wyoming's proposed language—“in the area”—is slightly broader and can be reasonably understood to capture both the permit area and adjacent area. These cha ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 55k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━