"The Interior Department will leave in place George W. Bush-era changes to a rule designed to protect streams from mountaintop-removal coal mining until 2011, according to court documents filed by the Obama administration Friday.

A new 'stream-buffer zone' rule could 'optimistically' be finished by early 2011, Glenda Owens, acting director of Interior's Office of Surface Mining, said in papers filed Friday.

Interior will formally announce the start of the rulemaking this month and open a 30-day window for public comments, according to the court papers. Then, the mining office will move 'as expeditiously' as possible to finish the rule, but no formal timeline can be set without knowing the volume of public input, Owens said."

Patrick Reis reports for Greenwire in the New York Times November 2, 2009. [2]