Efforts To Reverse Rule On Mountaintop Mining Debris.

The Obama administration stepped up efforts to reverse a rule adopted late in the Bush administration that makes it easier for companies to deposit debris from mountaintop coal mining near streams. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, left, said that the rule was legally flawed and that he had asked government lawyers to press a federal court to vacate it and send it back for reworking. ''The so-called stream buffer zone rule simply doesn't pass muster with respect to adequately protecting water quality and stream habitat that communities rely on in coal country,'' Mr. Salazar said. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]