WASHINGTON (AP) - The Environmental Protection Agency, rejecting pleas from state governors and environmental groups, signed off Tuesday on making it easier to dump mountaintop mining waste near
rivers and streams.

But the EPA said it did so because it secured additional
safeguards.

The governors of Kentucky and Tennessee, as well as other
lawmakers from those states, had urged EPA Administrator Stephen
Johnson to block the rule - which would rewrite a regulation
enacted in 1983 that bars mining companies from dumping huge waste
piles within 100 feet of temporary streams when it could diminish
water quality and quantity.

Under a provision of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation
Act - promulgated largely by the Interior Department - the EPA must
concur in writing to any mining regulations that could affect air
and water quality.

The Bush administration needs the EPA's approval to make the
rule final. The regulation has already cleared the White House, and
officials with the Interior Department's Office of Surface Mining
were expected to brief members of Congress later this week.

If the rule is made final 30 days before President-elect Barack
Obama is sworn in, it would be difficult to change.

The EPA, in a statement issued Tuesday, said it backed the rule
because the Interior Department made improvements to the
regulation. The EPA pushed for and won a small concession that
clarifies that any mining activity in streams cannot violate state
or federal water quality standards. Mining officials wanted to
remove the language, according to the agency's Dec. 2 letter to
Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne.

The EPA also said the rule does more to ensure that companies
minimize their waste and consider alternatives before dumping it in
streams.

A spokesman for the Office of Surface Mining would not confirm
how the regulations changed or the EPA's rule. But earlier this
year the office said the rules improved environmental protection.

Environmentalists, however, saw little improvement in the rule
Tuesday.

"They're not adding anything new," said Joan Mulhern, an
attorney for Earthjustice. "They're just trying to confuse the
public and make it sound like they're adding back in some
environmental conditions."
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Associated Press Business Writer Tim Huber contributed reporting
from Charleston, W.Va.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)