A career staffer who worked at the departments of the Interior and Energy has been tapped to lead the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum in a June 5 memo announced that Thomas Shope will now lead OSMRE in an acting capacity, an agency tasked with cleaning up aging and toxic coal mines and safeguarding miners.
Shope has had a lengthy federal career, most recently working as a regional director at OSMRE and overseeing active coal mining operations and reclamation in Appalachia.
According to his online biography, Shope previously served as the principal deputy assistant secretary at the DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy, where he oversaw the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the National Energy Technology Laboratory and various carbon sequestration efforts.
