FEDERAL COURT INVOLVEMENT IN THE APPLICATION OF SURFACE MINING LAW |
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| Authors: | Robert L. Clinton |
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| Affiliation: | Robert L. Clinton is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Southern Illinois University - Carbondale. Her received his Ph.D. from the University of Texas-Austin in 1984. His book Marbury u. Madison and Judicial Review will be published by the University Press of Kansas this August. His articles have appeared in Constitutional Commentary, Public Law Review, UALR Law Journal, and the Journal of Law and Politics. |
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| Abstract: | This article surveys 122 federal cases reported in the Surface Mining Law Summary from the earliest legislation under SMCRA to the end of 1987. The analysis distinguished between cases in which all OSMRE regulations or applications of SMCRA were upheld by the federal courts, and those in which one or more regulations/applications were overturned. The analysis further classifies the cases according to whether the decisions were favorable to industry (or, conversely, to environmental/citizen groups), according to whether the issues involved were primarily of narrow private right (or, conversely, of broad public policy), and according to state-of-origin. Finally, separate examination of those cases in which OSMRE's discretion in the enforcement of SMCRA was restricted is provided. The author concludes t h a t both the federal courts and OSMRE have been reasonably even-handed in their application of SMCRA, contrary to the earlier expectations of some proponents and opponents of surface coal mining regulation in the United States. |
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