Last week, we mentioned West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin’s call for Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., to “clarify” his recent statements about coal and mountaintop removal.
That call from Manchin came in a bit of a rant on Hoppy Kercheval’s statewide radio show on the MetroNews network. Gov. Manchin is continuing to challenge Sen. Byrd, asking the senator to either pledge his allegiance to mountaintop removal or explain his opposition to the practice.
Manchin’s latest on this came in a story yesterday in the Daily Mail, in which the governor said:
I want to know if he’s against mountaintop removal completely or if he just wants to modify it. I want to make sure we’re still on the same page. If we have some clarification, it will help all of us.
The Daily Mail story also reported:
Manchin said his questions and concerns are not meant to be critical of Byrd, who has traditionally been a big proponent of the state’s coal industry.
“(Sen. Byrd) has been a champion for all of us,” said Manchin. “He’s been a tremendous friend and mentor.”
And:
The governor also vehemently denies accusations that his comments regarding Byrd’s coal statement are at all indicative of his own possible intentions to run for the senator’s seat in the future.
“This has nothing to do with that,” he said.
Manchin admits he often thinks about what he will do when his second term as governor expires. He said he would like to stay in public life but hasn’t taken any formal steps, such as forming an exploratory committee, to pursue any seat in particular.
“I haven’t done a thing. I’ll explore that later on,” said Manchin. “There’s not a better job than governor in this whole country.”
However, Manchin says he is keeping all his options open.
“I haven’t ruled a thing out.”
Are Sen. Byrd and Gov. Manchin on the same page on mountaintop removal?
Well, Manchin has called EPA efforts to more closely examine mountaintop removal permits “cruel and inhumane,” and promised to get “very boisterous” if the Obama administration doesn’t start moving some permits out the door. Manchin has gotten pretty good at helping to fan the flames of coal miners who are angry about the increased scrutiny mountaintop removal is getting.
And Sen. Byrd? Well, it wasn’t all that long ago — only 10 years — that Sen. Byrd was letting the environmentalists have it from the Senate floor, when he was pushing a legislative rider to overturn one of U.S. District Judge Charles H. Haden’s mountaintop removal rulings:
“Let me assure you: My amendment is not the toxic monster that it is purported to be,” Byrd said. “But you certainly wouldn’t know that from all the frothing at the mouth by people who either have no idea what they are talking about, or who, for some reason, are deliberately trying to mislead.” Byrd attacked environmentalists, ridiculing them for carrying banners and signs. He noted that protesters have shown up recently at several of his own re-election campaign events.
“These head-in-the-cloud individuals peddle dreams of an idyllic life among old-growth trees, but they seem ignorant of the fact that, without the mines, jobs will disappear, tables will go bare, schools will not have the revenue to teach our children, towns will not have the income to provide even basic services,” Byrd said.
But Sen. Byrd in his more recent statement that coal must “embrace the future“ urged the coal industry and its political supporters to tone things down:
Scapegoating and stoking fear among workers over the permitting process is counter-productive.
West Virginians may demonstrate anger toward the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over mountaintop removal mining, but we risk the very probable consequence of shouting ourselves out of any productive dialogue with EPA and our adversaries in the Congress.
Byrd also acknowledged that:
It is also a reality that the practice of mountaintop removal mining has a diminishing constituency in Washington.
Most members of Congress, like most Americans, oppose the practice, and we may not yet fully understand the effects of mountaintop removal mining on the health of our citizens.
And speaking directly to coal and its supporters, Byrd observed:
We have our work cut out for us in finding a prudent and profitable middle ground – but we will not reach it by using fear mongering, grandstanding and outrage as a strategy. As your United States Senator, I must represent the opinions and the best interests of the entire Mountain State, not just those of coal operators and southern coalfield residents who may be strident supporters of mountaintop removal mining.
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I don’t know how Byrd stands on this issue. Will it hurt WV or not? Does he support coal or not? Does he bash both sides of the issue or not? Really do most American disapprove or MTR and is most of Washington against MTR? What about the recovery of other natural resources are they against them too? I guess one answer to all these questions could be that each speech was written by a different staff writer or maybe the same one that answers the letters that I have written Senator Byrd in the last few months. This is all confusing an he plans to run for re-election again. He should do like Jay does. He doesn’t even write you back at all so he doesn’t make you feel so bad when you see one of his speeches. I think as West Virginia’s its time to end the confusion and the way we are viewed by our so called Representatives. You’ve heard of separation of the church and state. We have separation of the Representatives and the people of WEST VIRGINIA. Vote them out. Look at Al Gore he got confused at Copenhagen and used the wrong information in his speech. Now I ask you how should that be handled because the scientist he quoted gave correction to the information from London. Wonder what else he has gotten wrong? After all it had been a few years since he had talked to the scientist.
It yet remains for history to determine Senator Byrd’s motives.
It seems abundantly apparent, however, from reading the various reactions from the coal-at-all-costs crowd, that nothing short of abject worship and a fundamentalist level of unquestioning devotion will suit them.
Ken recently asked people to offer paths to that “middle ground” that Senator Byrd asked West Virginia to seek. Anyone who can read will see that those opposed to mountaintop removal offered suggestion after suggestion. Meanwhile, the coal-at-all-costs crowd did nothing, DO nothing but stand in the schoolhouse door screaming “Mountaintop removal yesterday, Mountaintop removal today, Mountaintop removal FO’EVAH!” Please see Bill Raney’s identical comments in several papers all over this state this past Sunday.
If I was Joe Manchin, given his undying political aspirations, I’d stay as far from that schoolhouse door as I can.
Sen. Byrd has that he is for resonsible mining practices ; NOT against coal mining its self ! Responsible mining means not allowing waste to be stored in mountain streams. The 100 foot buffer zone has been ignored too many times.
It seems the Governor suffers from “lack of clarity” syndrome. When the EPA is exercising its rights under the Clean Air Act the Governor says the rules aren’t clear. When the ranking Senator on Capitol Hill states his support of the coal industry, but calls for mining to be done responsibly, Manchin says he needs clairty.
We have called for years for our representatives to represent all of their constituents in WV. It is clear to me that Bryd is finally starting to do that.
There are many studies about the negative health affects of living in heavy coal producing counties. Some of these life threatening and deadly illnesses are due to irresponsible or illegal mining.
Nobody that I know wants an end to all coal mining in WV. This is just more “stoking fear” that the Senator spoke about.
I know Governor to be an educated man and it doesn’t look good for him to keep claiming “Lack Of Clarity” when things aren’t going his way.
If Manchin and the rest of coal industry would simply come right out and state that southern WV needs to be sacrificed, then maybe we could have an honest argument. Why not just admit that people who live in the coalfields have to move out?
Rick, do you not think that we miners do not live where we work? Bob, I offered some sugestions to east the need for massive fills and also for tort reform and I was called one sided. As for Manchin’s need to stay away from coal miners “schoolhouse door”. Im pretty sure that we coal miners will help send him to washington in Rep Capito’s seat and when Sen Bird either dies or bursts into a cloud of dust, we will send her across the capital to the senate chambers.
Scott14, I hope that Senator BYRD lives for a long time to come, and I certainly hope that after the years that we have witnessed Manchin’s actions in office that the citizens would not be happy seeing him in DC. As for Capito, I don’t really think that she could win in a state wide election. In my district I haven’t met anyone who likes her at all. We haven’t forgotten her dad and that is enough said.
Nanette, do you judge people by their family? That’s a very narrow minded way to look at people. Your family has an influence on you, but they create exactly who you are as an adult. People grow and change over time.
I’m not old enough to remember her father but even in my early twenty’s I know people change after they make a life of their own.
Even if Senator Byrd does live for a long time to come, it’s irresponsible for him to keep trying for his senate seat. He’s sick pretty often, he should step down so someone that can devote their full attention to the job can step up.
Well I messed up on that last post. I meant to put “Your family has an influence on you, but they don’t create exactly who you are as an adult.”
Daniel I agree with you to a degree on that point. I have seen some people turn out good that have come from some terrible backgrounds, but I have also seen people who tend to follow the way they were raised. Sometimes the old adage “apples don’t fall far from the tree” applies.
I am old enough to remember even Underwood’s first term, and I certainly remember everthing about Moore’s terms as governor. It wasn’t pretty. I am sorry, but I just don’t have the trust that you have in her. One question that I have is, why do we repeatedly elect people from the same political families over and over even when we know the corruption involved with some of them? We need a fresh batch of people running for office pure and simple.
[...] Manchin repeatedly challenged Sen. Byrd’s statements on coal, demanding that the Senator explain [...]