The Stream Protection Rule was a United States federal regulation issued by the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement that went into effect on January 19, 2017.[1] These regulations implement Title V of the 1977 Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (SMCRA). The original regulations had been issued in 1979 and were updated in 1983. Litigation over mountaintop removal mining required changes to the regulations, which were issued in 2008. These regulations were in turn struck down by a judge after litigation by environmental groups. The new regulations, the Stream Protection Rule, were issued in January 2017.
They were a topic in the 2016 elections, with Republican candidates for federal office saying that they would strike the regulations down if they would be elected. In February 2017, the Republican-controlled Congress, through the Congressional Review Act, passed a bill (a "resolution of disapproval") to revoke the rule. President Donald Trump signed the legislation, repealing the rule.[2] This left the status of regulations implementing the SMCRA unclear.