Office Of Surface Mining
The Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSM or OSMRE) is a branch of the United States Department of the Interior. It is the federal agency entrusted with the implementation and enforcement of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 (SMCRA), which attached a per-ton fee to all extracted coal in order to fund an interest-accruing trust to be used for reclamation of abandoned mine lands, as well as established a set environmental standards that mines must follow while operating, and achieve when reclaiming mined land, in order to minimize environmental impact. OSM has about 500 employees, who work in either the national office in Washington, DC or of the many regional and field offices(OSM's Three Regions).
OSM has three main functions:
- Regulating active mines
- Reclaiming lands damaged by surface mining and abandoned mines
- Providing resources for technical assistance, training, and technology development
Read more about Office Of Surface Mining: Regulating Active Mines, Reclaiming Abandoned Mine Lands
Famous quotes containing the words office of, office, surface and/or mining:
“This century fulfills the office of road-laborer for the society of the future. We make the road, others will make the journey.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)
“So there he is at last. Man on the moon. The poor magnificent bungler! He can’t even get to the office without undergoing the agonies of the damned, but give him a little metal, a few chemicals, some wire and twenty or thirty billion dollars and, vroom! there he is, up on a rock a quarter of a million miles up in the sky.”
—Russell Baker (b. 1925)
“And yet we constantly reclaim some part of that primal spontaneity through the youngest among us, not only through their sorrow and anger but simply through everyday discoveries, life unwrapped. To see a child touch the piano keys for the first time, to watch a small body slice through the surface of the water in a clean dive, is to experience the shock, not of the new, but of the familiar revisited as though it were strange and wonderful.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)
“In strict science, all persons underlie the same condition of an infinite remoteness. Shall we fear to cool our love by mining for the metaphysical foundation of this elysian temple? Shall I not be as real as the things I see? If I am, I shall not fear to know them for what they are.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)