[Code of Federal Regulations]
[Title 7, Volume 6]
[Revised as of January 1, 2008]
From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access
[CITE: 7CFR632.12]

[Page 462-463]
 
                          TITLE 7--AGRICULTURE
 
   CHAPTER VI--NATURAL RESOURCES CONSERVATION SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF 
                               AGRICULTURE
 
PART 632_RURAL ABANDONED MINE PROGRAM--Table of Contents
 
                        Subpart B_Qualifications
 
Sec. 632.12  Funding priorities.

    (a) All eligible applications within a State are to be assigned a 
funding priority and subpriority. Assignment of a priority and 
subpriority establishes the order in which the proposed reclamation work 
will be selected and evaluated for funding. (See Sec. 632.20(b) for 
additional selection criteria.) Applications for individual, joint, or 
special projects (See Sec. 632.18) for areas of different priorities or 
subpriorities are to be assigned the highest applicable priority or 
subpriority. The funding priorities are as follows:
    (1) Priority 1. Protection of public health, safety, general 
welfare, and property from extreme danger of adverse effects of coal-
mining practices. Extreme danger means a condition that could be 
expected to cause substantial physical harm to persons, property, or the 
environment and to which persons or improvements on real property are 
exposed.
    (2) Priority 2. Protection of public health, safety, and general 
welfare from the adverse effects of coal-mining practices that do not 
constitute an extreme danger.
    (3) Priority 3. Restoration of the land and water resources and the 
environment where previously degraded by the adverse effects of coal-
mining practices, including measures for the conservation and 
development of soil, water (excluding channelization), woodland, fish 
and wildlife, recreation resources, and agricultural productivity. First 
consideration in this priority is to be the reduction of offsite damage 
affecting the public. Second consideration is to be given to restoring 
to beneficial uses for the main benefit of the land user.
    (b) Eligible and feasible applications for program assistance within 
each priority category (Sec. 632.12(a)) are to be funded in the 
following order:
    (1) Individual persons or public entities who owned the eligible 
area before May 2, 1977, and who neither consented to nor exercised 
control over the mining operation.

[[Page 463]]

    (2) Individual persons who would actively use the area, if 
reclaimed, for agricultural or silvicultural purposes.
    (3) All other participants.

[43 FR 44749, Sept. 28, 1978; 45 FR 65181, Oct. 2, 1980]