Friday, March 27th, 2009

This past Monday, President Obama shared more of his thoughts on mountaintop removal coal mining. Its a sign of good things to come!

JIM CARROLL: There has been decades of dispute in eastern Kentucky and other parts of Appalachia about removing — mountaintop removal, they call it; some people just call it strip mining. Do you anticipate in your administration a tighter regulation of this activity or even an outright ban on it? Where do you see that going?

 

PRESIDENT OBAMA: You know, this is one of those things where I want science to help lead us. I know that the Bush administration made some decisions pretty late in the day, at the end of their administration, on this issue. We want to reexamine it.

I will tell you that there’s some pretty country up there that’s been torn up pretty good. And I will also tell you that the environmental consequences of the runoff from some of these mountains can just be horrendous. You know this probably better than I do and have probably reported on it more.

Not taking that into account, because of short-term economic concerns, I think is a mistake. I think we have to balance the economic growth with good stewardship of the land God gave us.

Thanks so much to the Louisville Courier-Journal for their Whitehouse interview, and Ken Ward Jr’s blog, Coal Tattoo, for the heads up!

Be sure to read his statements from the campaign trail here: http://www.iLoveMountains.org/Obama

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