2006-12-04_REVISION - M1978314 (2)

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years." Motion at 2. They claim that this limitation applies to "[a]ny operator, including a • successor operator, who has held a permit for less than two years ...." Motion at 3. The Objectors' reading of the statute distorts the Act and has arbitrary consequences. Under their interpretation, every 110 Permit construction materials mine in the state, and every limited impact mine under a similaz provision of the Colorado Mined Land Reclamation Act,2 cannot apply to expand for two years if the mine is sold, even if, as here, the mine has been in place for decades. Motion at 2. This interpretation is inconsistent with the Act. The Act allows a miner who wants to locate a large mine in an undeveloped place to submit a Section 112 application at any time. In the Objectors' view, if a miner buys an existing small 110 Permit mine and wants to grow it into a larger mine he must wait two years before he can submit a Section 112 Permit. There is no reason to impose a two year limitation on one type of Section 112 permit applicant and not the other. The Objectors aze urging the Board to interpret the Act in a way that will give mine applicants an incentive to site new large mines in undeveloped locations rather than grow existing small mines. The Objectors are wrong. The Act does not provide the jurisdictional limit that they describe. Section 110(5)(a) of the Act does not state that a miner that purchases a 110 Permit mine that has been in existence for at least two years must wait two years before applying for a Section 112 mining permit. Their argument forces one to read a snippet of the statute in a vacuum, divorced from all context. That tactic violates the fundamental rule that statutes must be read as a whole so as to achieve legislative intent. Read in context, Section 110(5)(a) requires the mine applicant who obtains a mining permit under the expedited, streamlined permitting • process of Section 110 of the Act to wait two years to apply to enlarge the mine under Section 112. That two-year waiting period for the initial Section 110 permit applicant makes sense because its application was expedited and subject to less searching review than what is required of a Section 112 applicant. That two-year waiting period serves no purpose where, as here, the Section 110 mine has been in existence for twenty-eight years, and where the applicant submits all of the information required For a Section 112 permit. The Board has appropriately interpreted Section 110(5)(a) of the Act in its roles to provide that "the original Permittee cannot convert a Permit unless the permit has been in existence for two consecutive years." Rule 1.11.2(1) (emphasis added). Colorado courts will defer to the Board's reasonable interpretation of the Act. Although the Objectors' interpretation of the Act is unreasonable, in a competition between alternate reasonable interpretations of Section 110(5)(a), the Boazd's reasonable interpretation of Section 110(5)(a) in Rule 1.11.2(1) wins every time. The Board plainly has jurisdiction to consider King Mountain's application under Section 112, and Section 110(5)(a) of the Act poses no obstacle. The Act Authorizes an Operator to Apply to Expand a Section 110 Mine If the Mine Is At Least Two Years Old • The Objectors are urging the Board to read part of the two-year provision of Section 110(5)(a) out of context and in isolation. They selectively quote part of Section 110(5)(a) without quoting the entire sentence, and without considering how the provision fits into the Act z See Colo. Rev. Sta[. § 34-32-I 10(7)(a). 2