That’s my question of the day — of the week, of the month, really.
There’s lots of information floating around about what President Obama plans to do about climate change. But the new president and his aides have remained pretty low key when it comes to mountaintop removal. We know Obama said during the campaign that he opposed mountaintop removal. But we don’t know what he’s going to do — if anything — to back up that opposition.
Yesterday and today, some environmental group representatives and coalfield residents were in Washington, D.C., meeting with a few U.S. Environmental Protection Agency staffers and with Obama officials about the issue. I’m told the group met with Mike Shapiro, acting EPA assistant administrator for water and with Charles Lee, director of EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice. There were also meetings today with officials from the powerful White House Council on Environmental Quality.
Conveniently for the citizen groups, The New York Times published an editorial yesterday morning that urged Obama to ban mountaintop removal. Citizen groups are pushing for passage, among other things, of the Clean Water Protection Act, to overturn a Bush rule change that helped legalize valley fills.
So far, I can’t get Adora Andy, press secretary for EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, or CEQ spokeswoman Christine Glunz to comment on the meetings.
[UPDATED -- 4:45 p.m. March 17 -- I did hear back from Adora Andy, the EPA press secretary, and she didn't really have much to tell coalfield residents at this point about her agency's plans ... Here's all I could get out of her: "We're working with other government agencies about next steps right now." I also got an e-mail message from Christine Glunz, telling me she had just finished a meeting and would get back to me as soon as possible.]
[UPDATED -- 5:06 p.m. March 17 -- Got an e-mailed statement from Christine Glunz, which I'll paste in full here:
Just like many of the last minute changes made by the Bush administration shortly before leaving office, we are looking at the new Stream Buffer Rule that was issued in December of 2008. We are also reviewing the recent 4th Circuit Court decision made on mountaintop mining [NOTE use of industry term, instead of mountaintop removal]. The Council on environmental Quality works closely with all of the federal agencies on environmental policies and we have been meeting with the agencies and other interested stakeholders to discuss these issues. We are in an information gathering stage at this point asking for information about the environmental impacts of these decisions.]
But Vivian Stockman over at the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition was kind enough to pass on a letter that her organization sent Monday to Jackson. I’ve posted it here, and in short, it says:
We ask you to freeze the permitting of these pending mountaintop removal coal mines. We also urge you to take steps to prohibit this destructive practice entirely.
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West Virginia’s unemployment just hit a 7 year high…and you want to put more people out of work…Walmart is cutting back, so what do they do for income…sell crack?…why don’t you get a grip…better yet…why don’t we stop selling coal to power plants and let them turn the lights off…becasue non-renewables are not a viable energy source…just ask the backers of the West Texas wind farm…
1) Deriving energy from renewables creates more employment than deriving it from fossil sources.
2) If coal disappeared tomorrow, the lights would go off only temporarily until we, of necessity, used our ingenuity to develop non-fossil sources. The reason they don’t play a larger role already is because the playing field isn’t level due to the political influence of the fossil folks. Go to http://www.enn.com/top_stories/article/39455 to read about a new study on the potential of renewables.
he’s gonna end it
He is a politician, he will do whatever the major money donors want.
Stopping the practice of MTR will create jobs for underground miners. Coal companies will go after the coal until there is no longer a market for it. If they can’t do it by MTR they will revert to underground mining. There are not that many miners involved in MTR. Stop using that as an excuse to continue this abominable practice.
I have seen estimates that within a few years employment in coal mining, during a relatively stable coal market period, would double if MTR were banned.
It seems to me an undeniable fact that the cessation of the destructive practice of MTR will provide more jobs for miners. Deep mining provides more jobs, period! Also, it goes without saying that the devestation of our Appalachian Mountains is a horrible practice that affects the health and lives of thousands of coal community residents. What about the defiling of our streams, the loss of native mountain flower and fauna. Further, who gave coal companies the right to wantonly destroy God’s handwork, the Appalachian Mountains, the oldest mountains in the world. EDITED to delete all caps. No yelling, please.
Obama will do nothing re: MTR coal mining.
He’s no different than 99.9% of all politicians, telling us what we want to hear.
Believe it ! If these groups are sucessful in stoping M T R , underground mining will face the same fate ! Just log on to ovec or crmw and see for yourself. Oh and by the way ,where is all the support for great the great Mr Roselle. I would think they would shout it from the moutain tops they so claim to defend with such passion.
Mountaintop Removal will never make West Virginia, eastern Kentucky, or surrounding regions prosperous. One only needs to visit these areas to see. For 120 years coal wealth has been extracted with almost nothing returned to the communities for infrastructure or economic diversification. MTR only accelerates the annihilation of community and ecosystem.
As for coal based power, it needs to pay its full way. As it stands, the full costs of the “side effects” are borne by present and future generations. I speak of mercury poisoning, acid rain, climate change, water pollution, flooding, ruined landscapes, and damaged carrying capacity of the land. Charge full costs to these effects and add to customer power bills and coal is not the bargain it is touted as. (and I add, this becomes a moral outrage, a category of theft or scam).