State regulators from New Mexico to Pennsylvania and Maryland say President Donald Trump’s blanket freeze of federal spending is now blocking billions of dollars needed to clean up old, polluting mines and halt underground mine fires that can fuel wildfires, land subsidence and deadly accidents.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, on Thursday sued the Trump administration for holding up money that Congress has appropriated, including more than $3 billion the state is slated to receive over the next decade to repair, clean up and close dangerous mines that leak pollution and pose a danger to the public.
In December, a woman in Pennsylvania died while searching for her cat after falling into a sinkhole exposed by a long-abandoned mine. The state is home more than 11,000 abandoned mines.
“This grant funding would allow for reclamation of around 24,000 acres of abandoned mine land, for construction or maintenance of 16 water treatment systems that deal with toxic runoff from abandoned mines, and for responding to about 60 emergency events per year,” attorneys for the Keystone State wrote in the lawsuit.
