GOP not convinced changes to mining rule analysis lacked political motivation

Republicans vowed Thursday to push further against findings by the Interior Department’s internal watchdog that the Obama administration’s changes to a study of the jobs impact of a potential rule on mining pollution were not politically motivated.

At issue at the House Natural Resources Committee hearing was whether the Obama administration forced a contractor to reconfigure calculations for a possible rule protecting streams from pollution from mountaintop-removal mining, a controversial practice, to reduce the number of job losses.