WASHINGTON - Republican Reps. Barbara Cubin of Wyoming and John Peterson of Pennsylvania are working to resolve their differences on abandoned mine cleanup legislation in time to add it to the pending energy bill.

Cubin is a member of the House-Senate conference currently making final decisions on the energy bill, which congressional leaders are trying to finish before the August recess.

The mining legislation would reauthorize a 1977 law that charges coal producers a per-ton fee to fund the cleanup of abandoned mines. Congress has approved several short-term extensions for the law, which is now set to expire Sept. 30.

The two regions are battling over the bill because of a shift in mining from the East to the West. Wyoming, which now produces more coal than any other state, is the biggest contributor to the federal cleanup fund and gets the most money from it. But Eastern states like Pennsylvania have declining coal production and the most abandoned mine land.

So far this fiscal year, Wyoming's share of the reclamation fund is slightly more than $450 million and Pennsylvania's share is just shy of $60 million. But Wyoming has fewer unreclaimed sites, and Pennsylvania has $1 billion worth of cleanup to do.

Peterson has introduced legislation that would direct more funding to states with the most abandoned land, while Cubin's bill would continue to steer funds to Wyoming.

Cubin said she is working to add more money to her version of the bill for Pennsylvania, in hopes that Peterson and other members of that delegation support it. But she declined to say how much that would be.

Peterson said Thursday that he is waiting to see Cubin's final language, but he hopes they can agree in time to add it to the energy legislation.

"If Pennsylvania is appropriately compensated, I don't have a problem with it," he said. "If it's not, we'll fight it."

Peterson said the mining legislation is his "No. 1 issue." Three people in Pennsylvania have already died this year from accidents involving abandoned mines, he said.

Not all Eastern members have opposed Cubin's bill. Some members of Congress from Appalachian states, including Rep. Nick J. Rahall, D-W.Va., are supporting it because of language that would expand the guarantee of health care benefits to thousands more retired miners from the United Mine Workers of America who worked for companies that no longer exist.

Cubin said she is pushing leaders of the energy conference, including Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, to add the mining legislation to the energy bill.

Even if it is added, the energy legislation could still stall. The House and Senate must approve the conference report, and previous versions of the energy legislation died in 2002 and 2003.