{"id":204058,"date":"2026-05-28T01:18:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T01:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/204058\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T01:18:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T01:18:09","slug":"pennsylvania-lawmakers-introduce-bills-to-tackle-zombie-mines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/204058\/","title":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania lawmakers introduce bills to tackle &#8220;zombie mines&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\tFederal lawmakers from Pennsylvania have introduced new legislation to address unclaimed &#8220;zombie mines,&#8221; which are long-standing idled coal mines.  The two bills are part of a national legislative package developed with the Appalachian Citizens&#8217; Law Center and Appalachian Voices. The legislation aims to strengthen mine cleanup requirements and ensure coal companies are financially responsible for reclaiming mined land.  &#8220;It hurts our drinking water, our health, fishing and swimming and more suffer. It creates risks like mudslides and flooding. Growing up, I thought it was normal that you&#8217;d see these orange streams around here. That&#8217;s not a normal thing. That is something that we have that requires these companies to take care of when they&#8217;re done, and that damage can last for decades,&#8221; Rep. Chris Deluzio said.  Advocates say these mines are not only a public safety issue but also harm the region economically. Representatives Summer Lee and Chris Deluzio hope the legislation will close loopholes, address weak bonding requirements, and reduce corporate influence.\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>Federal lawmakers from Pennsylvania have introduced new legislation to address unclaimed &#8220;zombie mines,&#8221; which are long-standing idled coal mines.  <\/p>\n<p>The two bills are part of a national legislative package developed with the Appalachian Citizens&#8217; Law Center and Appalachian Voices. The legislation aims to strengthen mine cleanup requirements and ensure coal companies are financially responsible for reclaiming mined land.  <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It hurts our drinking water, our health, fishing and swimming and more suffer. It creates risks like mudslides and flooding. Growing up, I thought it was normal that you&#8217;d see these orange streams around here. That&#8217;s not a normal thing. That is something that we have that requires these companies to take care of when they&#8217;re done, and that damage can last for decades,&#8221; Rep. Chris Deluzio said.  <\/p>\n<p>Advocates say these mines are not only a public safety issue but also harm the region economically. Representatives Summer Lee and Chris Deluzio hope the legislation will close loopholes, address weak bonding requirements, and reduce corporate influence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Federal lawmakers from Pennsylvania have introduced new legislation to address unclaimed &#8220;zombie mines,&#8221; which are long-standing idled coal&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":204059,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[89987,89974,89975,529,89984,89983,89986,4188,1057,89976,89977,89985,393,89981,89978,1136,28,30,9318,20037,29,89982,89980,89979],"class_list":["post-204058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-appalachian-citizens","tag-appalachian-citizens-law-center","tag-appalachian-voices","tag-bill","tag-coal-company","tag-coal-mine","tag-federal-lawmaker","tag-fishing","tag-health","tag-idled-coal-mines","tag-introducing-bills","tag-law-center","tag-legislation","tag-mine-cleanup-requirement","tag-mine-cleanup-requirements","tag-mudslide","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-lawmaker","tag-pennsylvania-lawmakers","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-rep-chris-deluzio","tag-zombie-mine","tag-zombie-mines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204058\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}