BLOGGER INDEX
Wednesday, June 11th, 2014 | Posted by Thom Kay | 2 Comments
Last week, Appalachian Voices and Earthjustice teamed up with a group of Appalachian residents in Washington, D.C., to lobby members of the U.S. House of Representatives to cosponsor the Clean Water Protection Act, and discuss the importance of protecting clean water with the Environmental Protection Agency and Office of Surface Mining. [ Read More ]Monday, March 31st, 2014 | Posted by Thom Kay | No Comments
Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to roll back stream protections in an effort to make it easier to dump waste from mountaintop removal mines into Appalachian streams. Given the makeup of the House right now, this comes as no surprise. But there is a silver lining.
[ Read More ]Thursday, March 20th, 2014 | Posted by Thom Kay | No Comments
It’s hard to get a good bill all the way through the legislative process to receive a vote on the House floor. Apparently it’s much easier to get a bad bill that far. H.R. 2824 — pro-mountaintop removal legislation that would weaken protections for Appalachian streams — is expected to head to the House floor for a full vote sometime next week. [ Read More ]Tuesday, January 14th, 2014 | Posted by Thom Kay | 2 Comments
More than 2,000 miles of Appalachian streams have been buried or poisoned by the valley fills associated with mountaintop removal mining. Yet, despite touting his credentials as a former coal regulator, Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) believes that current stream protections are sufficient and dumping mining waste into streams is illegal. [ Read More ]Friday, December 6th, 2013 | Posted by Thom Kay | 2 Comments
“I don’t want to mislead anyone, I don’t think it will pass in the Senate and maybe not the House,” Virginia Rep. Morgan Griffith said of his bill, the latest futile attack on the EPA, which would to force the agency to layoff 15 percent of its employees.
Congressman Morgan Griffith (R-VA) introduced a new bill this week titled the “EPA Maximum Achievable Contraction of Technocrats Act,” or “EPA MACT Act.”
The bill would require the EPA to layoff 15 percent of its employees. The title of the bill is a play on words, referring to EPA’s Utility MACT rule, which would drastically reduce air pollution in the United States. Because if there’s one thing that makes a good piece of federal legislation, it’s a title that pokes fun at pollution controls.
The bill would reduce employment at EPA over a three-year period, though no rate of contraction would be mandated over that time period. It also includes a long “Findings” section full of disjointed talking points that are seemingly meant to explain the need for staff cuts. Griffith uses the fact that 95 percent of the EPA’s employees were deemed ‘non-essential’” during the government shutdown to justify the reductions and makes the trivial point that “the EPA occupies space in fourteen different buildings in the District of Columbia.”
(more…)
Wednesday, September 25th, 2013 | Posted by Thom Kay | No Comments
Part 5 in a 5 part series
Lie 5: Energy Security. The United States does not need mountaintop removal for our energy security. In fact, mountaintop removal likely provides no more than 3.5 percent of the nation’s electricity.
Lie 5: Mountaintop removal mining is necessary for our nation’s energy security.
While coal is in perpetual decline, more than one-third of America’s electricity still comes from the fossil fuel. It is on this premise that supporters of mountaintop removal stand when arguing that the practice is necessary for our nation’s energy security. But in order to go from that first point to their conclusion anyone arguing for mountaintop removal has to ignore quite a few facts along the way.
“Energy security,” in this case, is a somewhat vague term. An unrealistic argument indicates that, without mining coal in the U.S., we’ll be without electricity. A more realistic argument states that if we don’t mine coal in the U.S., we’ll have to buy coal from other countries like Russia or China. In either case, the argument is based on a potent concoction of misinformation and fear tactics.
(more…)
Wednesday, September 18th, 2013 | Posted by Thom Kay | No Comments
Part 4 in a 5 part series
Lie 4: Reclamation. More than a million acres of flattened mountains does not mean economic development after all.
Lie 4: More mountaintop removal coal mining will provide much needed flat, reclaimed land for economic development.
Central Appalachia has been mired in a mono-economy for the greater part of a century. In many counties, coal mining has been the only source of good paying jobs. Mining jobs sustained a livelihood for thousands of families over the years. But when the mining companies leave town, they leave very little behind.
Appalachia needs economic diversification. That, we are meant to believe, is where mountaintop removal comes in.
The mining method has irreversibly turned more than one million acres of Appalachian mountains into flat land, and flat land is more useful for building things like factories or Walmarts. In yesterday’s L.A. Times, West Virginia State Senator Art Kirkendoll called for more mountaintop removal, saying “Once you leave it flat, you have a place where you can diversify the economy with office parks and wind turbines.”
(more…)
Monday, September 16th, 2013 | Posted by Thom Kay | 1 Comment
Part 3 in a 5 part series
Lie 3 of 5: No candidate opposed to mountaintop removal has ever been elected to the U.S. Senate, or ever will be.
Despite what political supporters of the coal industry would have us believe, a candidate opposed to mountaintop removal coal mining can, and likely will, represent Kentucky or West Virginia in the U.S. Senate someday.
While it it has not happened yet, the past does not dictate the future. A woman has never been elected to the Senate in either state, but looking ahead to the 2014 elections, it seems likely that three of the four candidates — Natalie Tennant (D-WV), Shelley Moore-Capito (R-WV), and Alison Lundgren-Grimes (D-KY) — will be women. The primaries won’t happen until next year, but these women are the apparent front runners for their party nominations. It’s a pretty good bet that a woman will represent at least one of the two states in the Senate.
You may be thinking: “It’s about time. After all, more women serve in the Senate now than at any other time in history. But things will really have to change to put someone opposed to mountaintop removal in office.” Not according to a 2011 poll by Lake Research Partners and Bellwether Research, which found that in both Kentucky and West Virginia, voters had an unfavorable view of the mining practice.
(more…)
Thursday, September 12th, 2013 | Posted by Thom Kay | 3 Comments
Part 2 in a 5 part series
Lie 2 of 5: Economy. Calling mountaintop removal an economic driver couldn’t be further from the truth.
Proponents of mountaintop removal mining use a very simple and straightforward logic to justify the practice: jobs are good for the economy, and mountaintop removal mining provides jobs, therefore mountaintop removal mining is good for the economy.
The argument is logical, but only if you ignore the actual, well-established and thoroughly understood impacts that mountaintop removal has had throughout the region.
Mountaintop removal equals job removal. Coal companies are always looking for ways to cut costs and make their workers more efficient. In other words, they want to get more coal while using fewer miners. That’s where surface mining comes in. Underground mining in Appalachia requires approximately 50 percent more miners than surface mining to acquire the same amount of coal.
(more…)
Monday, September 9th, 2013 | Posted by Thom Kay | 6 Comments
Part 1 in a 5 part series
Lie 1 of 5: Balance. According to some in Congress, supporting mountaintop removal is the same as advocating for a balance between the environment and the economy.
After spending a month back in their home states, Congress is back in session. Between the budget, the debt ceiling, Syria, energy efficiency bills, and the farm bill, they have plenty of work to do in a short period of time but rest assured the dialogue on Capitol Hill will contain the same old mix of logic and utter nonsense.
There are ethical and committed people working in Congress, both members and staff, but their work is often stifled by clever politicians catering to special interests and major donors. On every environmental issue under the sun, polluters and their allies are prone to misleading the public. Over the next two weeks, we’ll refute the five biggest, baddest lies about mountaintop removal coal mining.
1. When it comes to mountaintop removal, we need to strike a “balance” between the economy and the environment
Since arriving in Washington, D.C., six years ago and watching more Congressional hearings than I can count, one of the cliches that gets under my skin the most are the constant cries that we need a balance between the economy and the environment.
(more…)
Wednesday, August 7th, 2013 | Posted by Thom Kay | 1 Comment
Rep. Bill Johnson really likes coal, and he’s willing to put the health of Appalachia’s streams and communities at risk to prove it.
A lopsided legislative hearing held by the House Natural Resources committee last Friday is further proof that fans of mountaintop removal mining aren’t giving up without a fight. The hearing focused on legislation recently introduced by Rep. Bill Johnson (R-OH), a proud coal industry advocate, and Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO), a pro-coal congressman in his own right.
With the catchy title “Preventing Government Waste and Protecting Coal Jobs in America,” or “PGWPCJA,” H.R. 2824 would stop the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSM) from writing a rule to protect streams from excessive coal mining pollution. Instead, the bill would require OSM to implement the flawed 2008 Stream Buffer Zone rule and prevent the agency from improving that rule for a minimum of seven years.
Read More ...Tuesday, July 30th, 2013 | Posted by Thom Kay | 2 Comments
Hal Rogers knows cutting the EPA’s budget by one-third will not lower the deficit, instead he says, “In this bill, I’m trying to repeal the war on coal.”
Tomorrow morning at 11 a.m., the U.S. House Appropriations Committee will vote on a bill that is an egregious attack on the environment. The Appropriations bill before them would sharply cut funding for the Department of the Interior and the U.S Environmental Protection Agency, and prevent the agencies from improving the regulation of mountaintop removal coal mining in Appalachia. We need your help to stop these attacks.
The bill would cut EPA’s budget by a whopping 34 percent. For those of you interested in cutting the deficit, keep in mind that the EPA’s budget makes up around one-fifth of one percent of this country’s annual spending. Hacking their funding was not done to reduce the deficit. As Chairman of the Appropriations committee Hal Rogers (R-KY) said himself, “In this bill, I’m trying to repeal the war on coal.”
(more…)
