13. Environmental Protection Agency · Minor
Fully stand up the Office of Mountains, Deserts and Plains
Printed page 432 13. Environmental Protection Agency
“Expand and fully stand up the Office of Mountains, Deserts and Plains to support innovative approaches to the cleaning up of abandoned mines.”
What has happened
- Partially done
OMDP is standing up around the Good Samaritan program: EPA revised the financial assurance guidance on 2026-03-05 and on 2026-07-16 noticed its preliminary determination to grant the first Good Samaritan remediation permit, for Trout Unlimited at the Bodie Mine in Okanogan County, Washington. EPA's own OLEM page (2026-08-17) confirms OMDP leads that implementation and also runs abandoned uranium mine cleanups on Navajo Nation lands and critical mineral recovery at legacy mine sites. It is `partial` and not `done` because nothing shows the office being expanded — its director is still "Acting" and no staffing or budget increase is on the record.
- Attempted
EPA published financial assurance guidance for the Good Samaritan Remediation of Abandoned Hardrock Mines Act of 2024 — the first implementing step of the pilot program the Office of Mountains, Deserts and Plains leads. The office itself was neither expanded nor filled: its director is still listed as acting.
Research log
What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence
Research notes
- The Federal Register full-text search that found this cluster was for “Office of Mountains, Deserts and Plains” in EPA documents, which returns the two financial-assurance guidance notices and the Bodie Mine permit notice.
- The Good Samaritan Act itself was enacted in December 2024, before the window; what falls inside the window is EPA’s implementation of it through OMDP.
- Partial rather than done: the ask is “expand and fully stand up”, and an office run by an acting director with no documented growth is not fully stood up.
- Action
- expand
- Object
- Office of Mountains, Deserts and Plains
- ID
- 1128