Dear Secretary Salazar:

Two years ago you received the first in a series of letters asking for information and documents that would explain the deeply concerning decisions made by the Department and the Office of Surface Mining ("OSM") over the last few years related to the decision to discard nearly 5 years of rulemaking and begin a rewrite of Stream Buffer Zone Rule. The Committee has raised several questions and asked for specific documents related to the Department's concluded decision to casually toss aside a rule that took five years of study and scientific analysis to draft, rush to draft a replacement rule that would destroy 7,000 jobs, impact 22 states and fall disproportionally on small businesses, only to come to an apparent stand-still when the ineffectual and disastrous nature of the new rule was brought to light. Over the last two years, this Committee has sent 9 letters 1 to the Department and not a single deadline has been met. In April and May of 2012, the Department received two subpoenas for the production of documents. Not one single line item in either subpoena has been complied with.

Read the entire letter HERE.