In United States constitutional law, a regulatory taking occurs when governmental regulations limit the use of private property to such a degree that the landowner is effectively deprived of all economically reasonable use or value of their property. Under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution governments are required to pay just compensation for such takings. The amendment is incorporated to the states via the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground or from a mine. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from iron ore and for cement production. In the United Kingdom and South Africa, a coal mine and its structures are a colliery, a coal mine is called a "pit", and above-ground mining structures are referred to as a "pit head". In Australia, "colliery" generally refers to an underground coal mine.
Surface mining, including strip mining, open-pit mining and mountaintop removal mining, is a broad category of mining in which soil and rock overlying the mineral deposit are removed, in contrast to underground mining, in which the overlying rock is left in place, and the mineral is removed through shafts or tunnels.
Inverse condemnation is a legal concept and cause of action used by property owners when a governmental entity takes an action which damages or decreases the value of private property without obtaining ownership of the property through the use of eminent domain. Thus, unlike the typical eminent domain case, the property owner is the plaintiff and not the defendant.
Mining law is the branch of law relating to the legal requirements affecting minerals and mining. Mining law covers several basic topics, including the ownership of the mineral resource and who can work them. Mining is also affected by various regulations regarding the health and safety of miners, as well as the environmental impact of mining.
Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon, 260 U.S. 393 (1922), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that whether a regulatory act constitutes a taking requiring compensation depends on the extent of diminution in the value of the property.
Mineral rights are property rights to exploit an area for the minerals it harbors. Mineral rights can be separate from property ownership. Mineral rights can refer to sedentary minerals that do not move below the Earth's surface or fluid minerals such as oil or natural gas. There are three major types of mineral property: unified estate, severed or split estate, and fractional ownership of minerals.
Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council, 505 U.S. 1003 (1992), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States established the "total takings" test for evaluating whether a particular regulatory action constitutes a regulatory taking that requires compensation.
The Westmoreland County coal strike of 1910–1911, or the Westmoreland coal miners' strike, was a strike by coal miners represented by the United Mine Workers of America. The strike is also known as the Slovak Strike because about 70 percent of the miners were Slovak immigrants. It began in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, on March 9, 1910, and ended on July 1, 1911. At its height, the strike encompassed 65 mines and 15,000 coal miners. Sixteen people were killed during the strike, nearly all of them striking miners or members of their families. The strike ended in defeat for the union.
Room and pillar or pillar and stall is a variant of breast stoping. It is a mining system in which the mined material is extracted across a horizontal plane, creating horizontal arrays of rooms and pillars. To do this, "rooms" of ore are dug out while "pillars" of untouched material are left to support the roof – overburden. Calculating the size, shape, and position of pillars is a complicated procedure, and an area of active research. The technique is usually used for relatively flat-lying deposits, such as those that follow a particular stratum. Room and pillar mining can be advantageous because it reduces the risk of surface subsidence compared to other underground mining techniques. It is also advantageous because it can be mechanized, and is relatively simple. However, because significant portions of ore may have to be left behind, recovery and profits can be low. Room and pillar mining was one of the earliest methods used, although with significantly more manpower.
HDG International Group and its subsidiaries are leading coal, natural gas and oil producers with significant operations in the central Appalachian area of the United States. Their reserves consist of over four billion tons primarily consisting of high energy content, low sulfur steam coal that is currently in high demand in the United States and international coal markets.
Eastern Enterprises v. Apfel, 524 U.S. 498 (1998), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the Coal Industry Retiree Health Benefit Act constituted an unconstitutional regulatory taking of property which required the Act to be invalidated. The import of this decision is that it was made in the context of a purely economic regulation. The plurality examines the statute and its resultant harm as an ad hoc factual inquiry based on factors delineated in Penn Central Transportation Co. v. New York City, such as the economic impact of the regulation, its interference with reasonable investment backed expectations, and the character of the governmental action. The decision thereby moved beyond the traditional notions of equal protection which had been applied to economic regulation since the time of Lochner v. New York, requiring extreme deference to Congress, and applied a regulatory takings analysis to the problem resulting in a much less deferential result. While the plurality recognizes that this is not a traditional takings case where the government appropriates private property for public use, they also state this is the type of case where the "Armstrong Principle" of preventing the government from forcing some people alone to bear public burdens which, in all fairness and justice, should be borne by the public as a whole. However, while the plurality seems to invalidate this particular law on takings grounds, the concurrences and the dissents warn of such an analysis as this should actually be examined under substantive due process or ex post facto theories.
Lingle v. Chevron U.S.A. Inc., 544 U.S. 528 (2005), was a landmark case in United States regulatory takings law whereby the Court expressly overruled precedent created in Agins v. City of Tiburon. Agins held that a government regulation of private property effects a taking if such regulation does not substantially advance legitimate state interests. Writing for the Court, Justice O’Connor found the test untenable for a number of reasons, but declined to grant Chevron relief because Chevron’s motion before the court was limited to a discussion of the “substantially advances” theory which had just been struck down. The Court remanded to the Ninth Circuit for a determination of whether the statute exacted a taking according to the formula of Penn Central.
Empress Casino Joliet Corporation v. Giannoulias, 231 Ill.2d 62, 896 N.E.2d 277 (2008), is a case from Supreme Court of Illinois in which four casinos challenged a tax imposed by Public Act 94-804. The Act was challenged on the grounds that it was an unconstitutional taking. The Court held categorically that a tax could never be a taking within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.
Bovard is an unincorporated community and coal town in Hempfield Township, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, United States. The community is located near U.S. Route 119, 2.3 miles (3.7 km) northeast of Greensburg and is also the former home of baseball standout, Anthony Marazza. Marazza, dubbed "Mr. Bovard", is notable for leading Bovard to six championships in the past decade in the ICL and Pittsburgh Leagues.
The Bergregal was the historic right of ownership of untapped mineral resources in parts of German-speaking Europe; ownership of the Bergregal meant entitlement to the rights and royalties from mining. Historically, it was one of those privileges that constituted the original sovereign rights of the king.
The 1927 Indiana bituminous strike was a strike by members of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) against local bituminous coal companies. Although the struggle raged throughout most of the nation's coal fields, its most serious impact was in western Pennsylvania, including Indiana County. The strike began on April 1, 1927, when almost 200,000 coal miners struck the coal mining companies operating in the Central Competitive Field, after the two sides could not reach an agreement on pay rates. The UMWA was attempting to retain pay raises gained in the contracts it had negotiated in 1922 and 1924, while management, stating that it was under economic pressure from competition with the West Virginia coal mines, was seeking wage reductions. The strike proved to be a disaster for the union, as by 1929, there were only 84,000 paying members of the union, down from 400,000 which belonged to the union in 1920.
In the mid-19th century, Colorado Springs was a center of mining industry activity. Coal was mined in 50 mines in the area and towns, now annexed to Colorado Springs, were established to support residents of the coal mining industry.
As a legal document, the broad form deed severs a property into surface and mineral rights. This allows other individuals or organizations other than the land owners to purchase rights to resources below the surface. These parties also receive use of surface resources – such as wood or water – to facilitate gathering the resources below ground. Based on English legal theory but an American creation from the early 1900s, the broad form deed was used by land and coal companies in many states within the Appalachian Region.
Hodel v. Virginia Surface Mining and Reclamation Association, 452 U.S. 264 (1981), is a United States Supreme Court case that unanimously held that the Commerce Clause allowed Congress to pass the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977, which regulated surface mining on private property, because of this environmentally destructive industry's substantial effects on interstate commerce.
