At the request of industry, Interior Secretary Gale Norton convened a Task Force to examine proposals to change federal financial assurance rules. The hard rock mining, coal mining and oil and gas industries claim that they are unable to get surety bonds, and that federal rules need to be weakened in response to this “crisis.”

• Assuring Cleanup, Background on Petition
• WORC fact sheet, The Need for Stronger Federal Oil and Gas Bonding Requirements
• WORC's comments to the Bonding Task Force
• 50 Groups criticize the Bonding Task Force for failing to meet with public interest groups
• WORC's news release on the Bonding Task Force's one-sided, industry-biased process