(From the Star-Tribune Editorial Board orginally published March 11, 2009)

Wyoming’s congressional delegation had to wage a lengthy battle to get the federal government to agree to pay back its share of abandoned mine land funds. Now, it’s going to have to fight just as hard to keep the money coming to Wyoming.

Make no mistake: This is money that’s owed to the state by the federal government. A tax on coal to help clean up abandoned coal mines has been in place since 1977. Coal states including Wyoming were promised half of the money collected, but didn’t receive it.

It’s a lot of money. Wyoming is scheduled to receive $580 million in back payments, which started in fiscal year 2008 as the result of legislation Congress passed in 2006. “It should come without strings attached; it is the law of the land,” said Sen. John Barrasso. He added that an agreement was made not to change the bill in the middle of the game, and it was reached in good faith. Then-Sen. Barack Obama even voted for the bill.

Jeopardizing the AML payments is a line in President Obama’s proposed budget that calls for “terminating payments to coal-producing states that no longer need funds to clean up abandoned coal mines.” It’s in a paragraph about providing a better return to taxpayers for mineral development.

It’s true that not all of the money is needed for reclamation. Officials say Wyoming has only about $100 million worth of coal reclamation to complete, and that should be done by 2012. But the $580 million is money that the state is owed. The federal government shouldn’t be able to retroactively take it back if it’s not all being spent on coal reclamation.

On this point, our all-GOP congressional delegation and Democratic Gov. Dave Freudenthal are united. “The Obama administration is just wrong on this,” the governor said. “It would have an impact on us, and not a good one.”

“To threaten to take away what we are already owed is outrageous,” Sen. Mike Enzi said. “It seems Washington never tires of picking on the little guy and seeing Wyoming as its cash cow.”

Rep. Cynthia Lummis said the delegation will not rest until Obama’s AML proposal is “buried.” It should be dead on arrival.

What makes the budget plan particularly preposterous is that taking away the funds would run counter to the goal of providing a better return to taxpayers. Last week, Freudenthal signed a supplemental budget bill that included $100.6 million in AML fund projects, including:

* $30 million for the state’s portion of a joint project with General Electric to build a plant to test coal gasification and clean-coal technologies.

* $10 million for the new University of Wyoming School of Energy Resources, which will conduct research on clean coal and renewable energy projects.

* $4 million for the Department of Environmental Quality’s Air Quality Division to address the impacts of energy development.

Wyoming is being a careful steward of the AML money, putting it back into energy resources and developing new technologies that are more environmentally friendly — which also happens to be the goal of the Obama administration. It would be ridiculous to stop the flow of money owed to the state — or future coal tax funds — and lose all of the benefits that can be derived from such energy research.

It’s an issue of both fairness and common sense to which we hope the president will respond favorably after he’s shown how damaging his plan would be to Wyoming and other coal states.