Officials from the Office of Surface Mining, Reclamation and Enforcement will likely face tough questions from lawmakers with respect to several controversial proposals in the president's new budget blueprint during a hearing Thursday by the House Interior, Environment and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee.

The president's request for fiscal 2012 cuts OSM spending by $17 million. At the same time, it proposes an increase in funding for state oversight and stream protection.

OSM's work on a stream protection rule has drawn ire from lawmakers, who say it will devastate coal state economies. OSM Director Joseph Pizarchik and other Interior Department officials have said the effort is still in its early stages.

"There is no draft EIS that has been out yet. It has not been approved by the department. We've made no judgment about what the final rule will look like," Interior Deputy Secretary David Hayes said at a hearing last week.

Hayes faced tough questions from Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio), whose amendment to the long-term continuing resolution passed in the House would block OSM from moving forward with a new stream protection rule (E&E Daily, March 2).

"I'm just concerned why OSM is in such a rush to finalize this rule," Johnson asked.

"We are not in a rush," Hayes responded.

Another point of contention is a proposal to rework abandoned mine reclamation efforts. The budget blueprint cuts $8.1 million from the reclamation fund. It calls for creating a competitive grant program and eliminating mandatory payments to states and tribes that have finished restoring their abandoned coal mines.

"This proposal allows mandatory funding to be focused on the highest-priority abandoned coal mine sites to eliminate public health and environmental hazards across the Nation," Pizarchik said in a statement about the budget. It would save taxpayers about $1.2 billion over the next decade, according to the administration.

But Western lawmakers have contributed to the proposal's failure before. They worry about tax money from their states going to cleanup efforts back east (E&E Daily, Feb. 16).

The president's budget also includes a new fee on hardrock mineral production to help pay for the reclamation of abandoned hardrock mines.

Schedule: The hearing is Thursday, March 10, at 11 a.m. in B-308 Rayburn.

Witnesses: OSM Director Joseph Pizarchik, Deputy Director Glenda Owens and OSM Budget Officer Ruth Stokes.

Reporter Phil Taylor contributed.