The ACHE Act puts a temporary hold on a specific type of coal mining in Appalachia while the government studies whether it's harming people's health. The mining in question is mountaintop removal—a practice that uses explosives to blast away the tops of mountains to access coal seams in Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Virginia. Until the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences completes and publishes a study on how this mining affects the health of nearby communities, the federal government cannot approve new mountaintop removal mining operations or renew existing permits. Companies that are currently doing this type of mining have to keep measuring and reporting pollution levels in the meantime, so there's a record of what's being released into the environment. To pay for this study and the monitoring requirements, coal mining companies—both those currently operating and those that have operated in the past—have to pay a one-time fee to cover the government's costs. Essentially, this bill says: before we allow more of this mining to happen, we need to know if it's making people sick, and companies have to help fund that investigation.

ACHE Act

McGarvey, Morgan

Appalachian Communities Health Equity Act or the ACHE ActThis bill prohibits the authorization or continuation of certain mountaintop removal coal mining pending the results of a study on the health effects of such mining.Specifically, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences must study and publish the health effects on surrounding communities of surface coal mining that involves explosives and that is conducted in the steep slopes of Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Virginia. Federal and state agencies may not authorize or renew any such mining until and unless the study concludes that there are no health risks; entities that currently conduct such mining must monitor and report pollution levels associated with such mining until the study's publication.The Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement must collect a one-time fee from each entity that currently or previously conducted such mining to cover the federal cost of implementing the bill's requirements.