Interior Department official met with coal industry lobbyists before canceling study on health effects of strip mining-HEALTHYLIVE

A top official in the Department of the Interior met repeatedly with coal industry lobbyists shortly before canceling a study on the public health effects of surface mining, Jimmy Tobias reports for Pacific Standard.

Katharine MacGregor, the principal deputy assistant secretary for land and minerals management, helps shape policy for regulating resource extraction in the Bureau of Land Management and other agencies. Her work calendar, which the Pacific Standard obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, shows she met with extractive industry groups or representatives more than 100 times between January 2017 and 2018. In the months leading up to the study's cancellation, she met at least six times with the most powerful mining lobbyists. "At the same time she held a mere handful of meetings—fewer than 10, according to my tally—with conservation organizations like The Wilderness Society and Sportsmen for the Boundary Waters," Tobias reports. "Some of MacGregor's meetings, moreover, involved industries and organizations that later benefited directly from decisions made by agencies under her purview."

MacGregor's "behind-the-scenes influence" was clear in the Interior's abrupt decision to halt and cancel a $1 million National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine study on the public health effects of surface coal mining in Central Appalachia last August, Tobias writes: "Emails obtained through a FOIA request show that Katharine MacGregor had a hand in ensuring the health study's cancellation. Indeed, she appears to have been keenly interested in the matter."

The U.S. Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement had hired NASEM to do the study, Ken Ward Jr. reports for the Charleston Gazette-Mail. At the time, the Interior said in a statement it had halted the study because it was reviewing all grants and cooperative agreements of more than $100,000, but according to Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva, the highest-ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Natural Resources, no other studies over $100,000 had been halted by the Interior. In a letter calling for the re-institution of the study, Grijalva wrote that "It increasingly appears as if DOI ended the study because of fears that it would conclusively show that mountaintop removal coal mining is a serious threat to the health of people living in Appalachia."

MacGregor's calendar show that she "appears to have a habit of meeting repeatedly with industries and organizations that later receive favorable treatment from agencies she helps oversee," Tobias writes, including "multiple gatherings with Exxon Mobil, Shell, Statoil, Conoco Phillips, the National Petroleum Council, the American Exploration and Production Council, and the Western Energy Alliance." She also met at least six times with representatives from Twin Metals Minnesota, which is owned by Chilean mining Antofagasta PLC, which wants to build a copper-nickel mine in the Boundary Waters wilderness of northern Minnesota. Though the Obama administration tried to block the proposed mine, last month the BLM (which MacGregor's office helps supervise) reinstated the company's mineral rights leases near the area.

A Department of the Interior spokesperson said that Mac Gregor is "happy to make time to meet with whomever requests a meeting," including conservation groups. "We have always welcomed input from all citizens and will continue to listen to ideas and concerns from anyone interested in sharing them."

from Kentucky Health News https://ift.tt/2JzjATh

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