News
Clean Water, Not Liquid Coal
Friday, June 15th, 2007
June 14, 2007 — The following email was sent to supporters of iLoveMountains.org. To sign up to receive free email alerts, click here.
The momentum behind our combined efforts to end mountaintop removal coal mining continues to build.
Just a few weeks ago, we wrote to tell you about the new record of support in Congress for the Clean Water Protection Act (H.R. 2169) – a critical piece of legislation in our effort to end mountaintop removal.
Since that email, the efforts of people like you have added 5 more Congressional co-sponsors to the Clean Water Protection Act — bringing our total number of co-sponsors to 83.
Hundreds of other supporters like you have been spreading the word about www.iLoveMountains.org – growing our online campaign to more than 11,200 people in the last few weeks alone.
And just last week, USA Today featured an article with Appalachian Voices’ Executive Director Mary Anne Hitt that prominently featured our efforts to use Google Earth to pull back the curtain on the coal companies’ destruction of Appalachia. Click here to read the full article.
But even as we make progress to stop mountaintop removal coal mining, we need to ensure that Congress doesn’t pass a bad energy bill that would increase America’s consumption of dirty coal.
And right now, Congress is doing just that as it considers several bills that would offer BILLIONS of dollars in tax breaks and subsidies to promote the conversion of coal into liquid form for use as transportation fuel.
Supporting coal-to-liquid technology would be a disaster for the mountains and people of Appalachia – and for the entire world. Its a dirty technology that will increase mountaintop removal coal mining.
The process of converting coal-to-liquids requires so much energy that it produces almost double the global warming emissions as regular gasoline. In fact, one ton of coal yields just two barrels of fuel.
Liquid coal technology would dramatically increase the need for mountaintop removal coal. To replace only 10 percent of our nation’s transportation fuels with liquid coal would require a 40 percent increase in coal mining throughout the United States.
This is a national issue – and that’s why we’re asking you to take action today.
Please click here to email your representatives in the US Senate and House today. Tell them to vote against any bill that promotes liquid coal. You can also call the Congressional Switchboard at (202) 224-3121:
Thank you for taking action today, and for all you continue to do for the mountains.
Lenny Kohm
www.iLoveMountains.org
PS – Please forward this email to your friends and family, and ask them to contact their representatives. All of Congress needs to hear from the American people that when it comes to America’s future energy needs, coal to liquids is the wrong answer.
