News
Response to Pizarchik nomination by Citizens Coal Council
Saturday, November 7th, 2009
CITIZENS COAL COUNCIL: SCRUTINY OF OBAMA ADMINISTRATION’S DEALINGS WITH STRIP MINING INDUSTRY WILL INCREASE BECAUSE SENATE HAS CONFIRMED INTERIOR SECRETARY SALAZAR’S ANTI-ENVIRONMENTAL NOMINEE TO DIRECT COAL SURFACE MINING AGENCY
Environmental, public health watchdogs to increase vigilance at Interior Department agency to be run by pro-industry former state regulator.
Citizen Groups Vow To Insist On Compliance and Enforcement As Top Agency Priority
Washington, PA – Citizens Coal Council (CCC), representing citizen groups and community leaders in every part of America where irresponsible coal mining companies create severe health, safety and environmental problems, vowed today that Senate confirmation of the Obama Administration’s choice to head the federal Office of Surface Mining Regulation and Environment (OSM) will make citizens work even harder to demand genuine reform in the industry-captured Interior Department agency.
CCC Coordinator Aimee Erickson stated “Those in the Senate who allowed this nomination to go through are helping the Obama administration continue to enable the worst coal mining practices in this country.”
“Coalfield citizens are not about to sit back and let the destructive mining practices that Joseph Pizarchik condoned when he failed to properly regulate the coal industry in Pennsylvania spread to the rest of the U.S. now that President Obama and Interior Secretary Salazar have chosen Mr. Pizarchik to lead the federal agency,” Erickson continued.
Bill Price, from the Sierra Club Environmental Justice program stated “Except for the first two years, the OSM has been a dysfunctional agency. The citizens groups in Appalachia and their allies across the country are expecting increased scrutiny of the OSM by Secretary Salazar. If Mr. Pizarchik tries to run the OSM in the same manner that he ran the Bureau of Mining and Reclamation in the Pennsylvania DEP, the world will know.”
Kentucky Resource Council Director Tom Fitzgerald added “The pressure is now really on Interior Secretary Salazar to personally see to it that genuine reform comes to Interior Department enforcement of the laws that are supposed to protect Americans against harm caused by the coal industry. We are grateful that the Secretary is at least considering whether to start honestly enforcing mountaintop removal laws again – but in every part of America where the coal industry operates, people are losing their homes and communities, their streams and their prairie and pasturelands, because OSM simply fails to enforce the federal law regulating how the coal industry is supposed to mine and reclaim the land.”
