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The Rural Abandoned Mine Program--A Fact Sheet
Duane A. Thompson, Analyst
Environment and Natural Resources Policy Division
June 12, 1995
95-706 ENR |
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| The Rural Abandoned Mine Program (RAMP) was designed to restore agricultural land that has been disturbed by strip mining. The program is carried out by the Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service at a current cost of about $10 million per year--a modest share of total Federal abandoned surface mining reclamation efforts that currently exceed $110 million per year, and that has been higher in the past. Critics contend that the RAMP program is inefficient and duplicates other Federal and State reclamation activities. Proponents contend that the effort has been underfunded and thus unable to fulfill its goals and to realize potential efficiencies. With the efforts of the 104th Congress to cut Federal expenditures and programs, the RAMP program appears highly vulnerable to being cut or eliminated. |
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| RAMP was included in the abandoned mine land program of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 (P.L. 95-87, Sections 401(c) and 406) to focus on the reclamation of small parcels of rural agricultural lands through cooperative funding by landowners. It is a minor component of a much broader Federal surface mining reclamation effort. Since 1977 RAMP has expended approximately $95 million, while the Interior Department's Abandoned Mine Lands (AML) Program, created at the same time and funded from the same source--a tonnage tax on coal--has expended close to $3 billion in similar activities. |
| The rationale for placing RAMP in the Agriculture Department lay in the beliefs that agricultural lands needed special attention and that the Natural Resources Conservation Service (formerly the Soil Conservation Service) and its local agents had a greater rapport with farmers than would representatives of the newly-created Federal Office of Surface Mining. However, the idea of concentrating on small agricultural sites was frustrated in part by another provision of the Act, which required that high-priority public health and safety hazards from mining be fixed first. As a result, farm land reclamation was superseded by amelioration of such dangers as open mine shafts and collapsing highwalls, a lower visibility but immediately necessary activity. |
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| Critics of RAMP maintain that it suffers from two shortcomings--excessive overhead and needless duplication of effort. |
| On the question of overhead, the Natural Resources Conservation Service maintains that its overhead has not exceeded 10 percent, an amount consistent with other AML programs. To achieve this figure, however, the agency may have moved some salary costs from its program category to individual reclamation projects. Supporters of RAMP note that it has never received its fully authorized funding. The law originally stated that "up to one-fifth" of collections may be used for RAMP--about $700 million since collections began. With a smaller budget, about one-seventh of its authorized share, the proportion of overhead tends to be higher. This issue was addressed by a 1990 amendment to the Surface Mining Act contained in the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (OBRA, P.L. 101-508, Section 6002). The amendment extended AML fee collections to September 2004, and guaranteed a full one-fifth share of these collections for RAMP--subject to annual appropriation. |
| The duplication issue is harder to address. There may have been some merit in the original claim that RAMP, by using the Natural Resources Conservation Service, could expedite reclamation. However, over 20 States now have their own reclamation laws, regulations, enforcement authority, and abandoned lands programs. They are eligible to receive their full 50 percent allocation of total AML fee collections. Those States that do not have their own agencies receive most of their funding from Interior's Office of Surface Mining. RAMP's expenditures are dwarfed by these other activities. |
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| RAMP has not been popular with the executive; beginning with the Reagan Administration, the President's budget has usually proposed zeroing the program. The Congress kept it alive, but only at levels much lower than the authorized amount. For FY1996, the Clinton Administration again proposes to eliminate funding for RAMP. |
The House and Senate Budget resolutions, which set ceilings on overall government spending, will place considerable pressure on programs like RAMP. The Senate Report (S. Report 104-82) on the FY1996 Concurrent Resolution on the Budget (S. Con. Res. 13) states that, "Level or decreased funding will likely necessitate termination of RAMP ...." The House Report (H. Rept. 104-120) Concurrent Resolution on the Budget (H. Con. Res. 67) does not mention RAMP specifically, but does suggest that the budget for the Office of Surface Mining should sustain cuts, "consistent with a 66-percent reduction in the Federal regulatory program and a 30-percent reduction in general administration." During debates on the concurrent resolutions in the House and Senate, the RAMP program was not mentioned--not singled out either as a target for cuts nor as a program deserving retention.
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| CRS Report for Congress |
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