Patrick McGinley, a West Virginia University College of Law professor, will testify at a U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources hearing Thursday (Nov. 17). The hearing centers around the Secretary of the Interior’s directive to consolidate and establish the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement within the Bureau of Land Management.

Congress must approve a merger between OSM with BLM, which may require extensive administration consolidation. There is concern with the merger by some of the committee members. Merging both the regulatory body and the entity responsible for leasing land could potentially mean sacrificing regulation of surface mining.

McGinley will be joined by three other representatives across the country to testify as a panel Thursday morning. This will not be McGinley’s first time testifying before Congressional committees. In the past he has testified for both the House of the Representatives and the Senate.

McGinley is a Duke University graduate and has been a professor at the WVU College of Law since 1975. He specializes in environmental, natural resources, access to public information and administrative law.

A live webcast of the hearing can be found at the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources website on Nov. 17 at 9:30 a.m. An archived video will be available after the hearing at: http://energy.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction.

-WVU-

kb/11/15/2011

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CONTACT: Kristin Brumley, College of Law
304-293-530, kristin.brumley@mail.wvu.edu