Meeting with the Department of Interior’s Bonding Task Force
Dear Deputy Assistant Secretary Fulton:
Several representatives of the undersigned organizations agree to a meeting with the Department of Interior's Bonding Task Force on August 7th. However, we do not believe that this meeting represents an effective effort on the part of the Task Force to communicate and consult with environmental, community and other public interest groups on the critical issue of bonding. As such, with the support of the seventy-one undersigned groups, we also request that the task force hold a series of regional meetings with environmental, community conservation, taxpayer and other public interest groups on each of the three major extractive industries — oil and gas, coal, and hardrock minerals — to ensure that the public's interests are sufficiently considered in the task force's deliberations and reflected in its recommendations.
Our request is predicated on several key points. First, the issues surrounding financial assurances for the three industries under consideration — hardrock minerals, coal, and oil and gas — involve separate governing laws and regulations and different technical issues.
Second, the task force has waited four months from its inception to schedule the first meeting with public interest groups. Meanwhile, multiple meetings have been held with the surety and mining industries, starting in May, or perhaps even earlier. As a result, we are conc78^2004-11-05 0:00:00^https://earthworks.org/assets/uploads/archive/files/publications/CyanideFactSheet.pdf~