State Representative Leslie Osborn is the new chair of the powerful House Appropriations and Budget Committee, an influential position that gives her bills extra weight. StateImpact talked to Osborn about legislation she’s pushing to increase mining fees, and to explore the sale of the Grand River Dam Authority.
The Tri-State Mining District in northeastern Oklahoma’s Ottawa County was once the world’s largest source of lead and zinc. The mines had closed by the 1970s, but pernicious pollution still plagues what is now known as the Tar Creek superfund site.
The court was hearing an appeal of the limit from groups including the Oklahoma Farm Bureau, Oklahoma Independent Petroleum Association, Oklahoma Aggregates Association, and mining company TXI.
There’s only about a month left in Oklahoma’s 2015 legislative session, and if bills haven’t made it out of the chamber they started in by now, they’re dead.
In May of last year, it looked like impoverished areas of eastern Oklahoma would be getting a lifeline.
As the energy industry has boomed in Oklahoma, so has gypsum mining.
On Monday, the House Appropriations and Budget Committee passed HB1876.
From health insurance exchanges to power plant emissions, the Obama Administration just can’t seem to get Oklahoma to play ball.
A report released in August by the Office of the Inspector General for the U.S. Department of the Interior cites Oklahoma as “the primary surface mining state with ongoing, unresolved AOC problems.”
