Yesterday, the agency rejected 10 petitions, including those of coal companies such as Massey Energy and Peabody Energy, that challenged the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2009 determination that climate change is real, caused by humans and a threat to human health and the environment.
According to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson:
The endangerment finding is based on years of science from the U.S. and around the world. These petitions — based as they are on selectively edited, out-of-context data and a manufactured controversy — provide no evidence to undermine our determination. Excess greenhouse gases are a threat to our health and welfare. Defenders of the status quo will try to slow our efforts to get America running on clean energy. A better solution would be to join the vast majority of the American people who want to see more green jobs, more clean energy innovation and an end to the oil addiction that pollutes our planet and jeopardizes our national security.
In June, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) signaled its approval of Arch Coal subsidiary Coal-Mac’s Pine Creek surface mine in Logan County, WV. Yesterday, the agency announced that the US Army Corps of Engineers (ACE) had issued its final Clean Water Act permit for the mountaintop removal mine.
In other words…
They are still blowing up our mountains, and we still need a law.
This permit was issued despite…
– EPA’s new guidance for mountaintop removal operations and EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson’s proclamation that “No or very few valley fills…are going to meet standards like this.”
– The fact that the mine could create three new valley fills (each over 40 acres).
– The fact that the site will impact over two MILES of already suffering headwater streams.
– The fact that local communities are already contending with increased flooding due to strip mining in the area (a problem additional sites will exacerbate).
– The fact that deforestation on site will continue to dismantle an important global carbon sink, while the mine itself will produce over 14 million tons of coal – which when burned in power plants – will contribute over 40 million tonnes of carbon dioxide greenhouse gas pollution to our planet’s atmosphere.
We can end mountaintop removal in 2010. Ask your Congressman to support two bipartisan bills aimed at sharply curtailing mountaintop removal: the Clean Water Protection Act (HR 1310) in the House and the Appalachia Restoration Act (S 696) in the Senate. The health and heritage of Appalachia is at stake and a “few valley fills” is a few too many.
Five days ago, we kicked off the Dear Companion tour in Lexington, KY in full force. We packed the house and many stopped by the iLoveMountains table to pick up materials and ask questions. The amazing part of doing this work in areas like Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Virginia is the stories you can come across. One of the ushers at the Lexington show stopped by and commented on how she had protested strip mining in Eastern Kentucky back in the 60’s. Others talked of family and friends in the region who have come and gone due to the the distressing effect mining has on the area. A young woman nabbed an I Love Mountains bumper sticker before rushing into the show calling over her shoulder, “I’m from Eastern Kentucky, I”m so glad they are doing this work..”
After a great show in Knoxville, TN, Dear Companion took a small break in Louisville before working our way to Charleston, WV. On stage in Charleston, the Dear Companion crew showed no shyness in letting the audience know why they were doing this tour. The crowd was receptive and the boys received a standing ovation for their performance. Later that night, many of us jumped on bicycles and rode around town, enjoying the cooler climate and new scenery.
It’s day five of the Dear Companion tour and we have landed in the small mountain town of Marlinton, WV. The town’s population is probably around 2,000. Nestled in Pocahontas County with the Greenbrier River running through, Marlinton is quiet and charming. I currently bring this update to you from a small local coffee shop called Cafely where the conversation has been abuzz with tonight’s performance. A family walked in earlier that drove from Huntington, WV to see the show. They were excited about the project and were looking forward to the evening. A young girl skipped in and said she had been to a gas station in Lewisberg, WV where a sign was posted condemning anyone who attended the show this evening. The barista commented the town was mostly pro coal and that she was skeptical about how many would attend.
Marlinton, WV is an interesting stop. It’s the smallest town we will be visiting on this tour and could be the most challenging. This is what this tour is about though, further opening a difficult conversation through the beautiful voices of Kentucky artists. Perhaps we’ll reach some new audiences today.
If you haven’t seen them yet, there’s still time! Catch em at the following venues:
Jul 27 – Charlottesville, VA – Jefferson Theater Jul 29 – Woodstock, NY – Bearsville Theater Jul 31 – Newport, RI – Newport Folk Festival Aug 1 – Newport, RI – Newport Folk Festival
As a parting gift to Big Coal, in late 2008 the Bush administration gutted the Stream Buffer Zone rule, which protected our nation’s streams and waterways from the worst coal industry abuses.
The old rule was a good rule – but it was never properly enforced. Today, however, instead of reinstating and enforcing the old stream buffer zone rule, the Obama administration is proposing totally new guidelines that would regulate how — and whether — America’s streams can be filled with waste from mining operations.
But before they’ll write the new regulations, the administration has decided to gather information for an Environmental Impact Statement. To that end, the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE) is requesting your opinion on what requirements a new stream protection rule should include.
This is a tremendous opportunity to make your voice heard on the kind of protections our streams deserve — before the rule is written.
Please, take just a few minutes today to make sure that your views are taken into account and our streams are protected from the devastation of mountaintop removal coal mining.
The Environmental Protection Agency has decided to delay a decision on its proposed veto of Arch Coal’s Spruce No. 1 mine until September 24, 2010. The decision to delay came after the agency received over 4,000 public comments.
The Spruce mine permit, if granted, would allow over seven miles of Appalachian headwater streams to be buried and more than 2,000 acres of West Virginian forests to be destroyed. It would also constitute the largest mountaintop removal permit ever granted.
CLARIFICATION: The September decision will be EPA’s Regional Administrators Recommended Decision. The Recommended Decision is next referred to EPA’s office in DC, and at that point the Corps of Engineers has an opportunity to fix the permit. A final decision on the veto may not happen until early 2011.
Reverend Billy is a renowned performance artist and activist who travels the world to fight against consumerism and the detriments of disposable goods. Recently, his 35 person gospel choir has turned to the issue of mountaintop removal coal mining, writing many original songs about the dangers of the environmentally harmful mining practice.
Reverend Billy has been hosting various events around the country to spread his call to end mountaintop removal, and he and his choir will now perform in West Virginia in honor of the great local activists who have won several victories against Big Coal.
Reverend Billy and the choir will hold their event in Charleston, WV, on Saturday, July 24th at 8pm in the West Virginia Cultural Center Theater.
That’s the message the Obama administration sent last week when it proposed a new rule that would curtail pollution from coal-fired power plants in the eastern United States. According to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, the rule should improve air quality as far south as Texas and Florida and as far north as Minnesota and southern New England.
More specifically, the new regulations would require utilities to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions by 71 percent and nitrogen oxide emissions by 52 percent – both relative to 2005 levels – by the year 2014.
Such reductions would significantly decrease unhealthy smog and soot levels and have a tremendously positive impact on the health of our nation. According to Gina McCarthy, head of the EPA’s air and radiation office, reduced emissions would save an estimated 14,000 to 36,000 lives every year. In addition, 240,000 cases of aggravated asthma, 23,000 nonfatal heart attacks, 21,000 cases of acute bronchitis and 1.9 million missed school and work days would be avoided.
Though the agency estimates the implementation costs of the new rule to be $2.8 billion per year, that cost pales in comparison to the rule’s estimated savings of $120 billion per year in avoided health costs, lives lost and sick days.
The rule would reverse and strengthen Bush era rules that have been met with intense scrutiny in recent years. In 2006, the previous administration decided not to lower the ten-year-old soot standard, despite the findings of its own scientists that compelled it to act otherwise. In response, over a dozen states, in addition to environmental groups, objected by suing the EPA.
“The E.P.A. proposal is a big step in the right direction,” said Frank O’Donnell of Clean Air Watch. “It’s a step toward taming the environmental beast known as the coal-fired power plant. But it is only a first step. E.P.A. still needs to move ahead with plans next year to limit power plant emissions of toxic mercury and other hazardous air pollutants.”
The EPA will be conducting hearings on the proposal in the months ahead. The rule is expected to take effect sometime next year.
Last Thursday, activists with the Rainforest Action Network showed up at the headquarters of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, chained themselves to one another and began blasting a special edit of “Take me Home, Country Roads.” Their take on John Denver’s classic included intermittent sounds of the earth- and nerve-shattering explosives used during mountaintop removal coal mining practiced in Appalachia.
The protest was organized in response to the EPA’s recent approval of Arch Coal’s major new mountaintop removal operation in Logan County, W.Va. The approved Pine Creek Strip Mine would impact over two MILES of already-suffering headwater streams, create three new valley fills (each over 40 acres), and further endanger local communities already contending with increased flooding due to strip mining. As deforestation on the Arch Coal mine site would continue to dismantle an important global carbon sink, the mine itself would produce over 14 million tons of coal, which when burned in power plants, would contribute over 40 million tonnes of carbon dioxide greenhouse gas pollution to the planet’s atmosphere.
RAN’s Scott Parkin’s explains:
We’re sitting down inside the EPA to demand the EPA stand up to protect Appalachia’s precious drinking water, historic mountains and public health from the devastation of mountaintop removal. At issue here is not whether mountaintop removal mining is bad for the environment or human health, because we know it is and the EPA has said it is. At issue is whether President Obama’s EPA will do something about it. So far, it seems it is easier to poison Appalachia’s drinking water than to defy King Coal.
How was your weekend, America? Any hot dates? You’re still involved with Big Coal?! Unbelievable. (Sigh) You do love when that industry talks clean to you, don’t you? All those sweet little lies…
Always the same story. You throw on your finest duds, but no longer expect anything new. Maybe you go out on your rapidly depopulating mining town and try to forget that you’re condemning your prospects with other industries there in the future? Knock back a drink or two of water contaminated with heavy metals and chemicals to help with the forgetting? Seriously America, what could possibly make this lousy relationship worse?
How bout the fact that time after time Big Coal is leaving you to take care of the ENORMOUS check?
Multiple reports and studies are showing how the coal industry receives billions of dollars in direct and indirect subsidies from US taxpayers.
A 2009 Environmental Law Institute study entitled “Estimating U.S. Government Subsidies to Energy Sources: 2002-2008” (pdf) shows that the U.S. coal industry benefited from subsidies of around $17 billion between 2002 and 2008. In addition to federal support, coal is getting plenty of help from state and local governments as well. Another 2009 report (pdf) written by Dr. Melissa Fry Konty and Jason Bailey found that in Kentucky, for instance, the coal industry receives $115 million in subsidies per year. In Virginia, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that the industry receives $44.5 million annually.
A 2010 Synapse Energy Economics report entitled Phasing Out Federal Subsidies for Coal (pdf) concludes that:
There remain certain distinct areas where federal financial policy implementation is not consistent with, and is even in conflict with, clear federal efforts to adapt to a carbon constrained future. Inconsistencies in federal policy require federal administrative intervention; private companies will not necessarily remedy the inconsistency. The disconnect between federal policies not only sets the nation back in achieving energy and environmental policy goals, but also places taxpayer dollars at risk. As regulatory policy changes, as financial circumstances change, so must the administrative financial policies of the federal government.
And let’s not forget about externalities: those negative impacts coal has on third parties that end up being paid for by taxpayers. These include costs associated with poisoned streams, deforestation, air pollution and global warming to name but a few. According to 2009’s Hendryx study, coal mining costs Appalachia $42 billion every year as a result of negative health impacts and loss of life. The Environmental Law Institute found that impacts to miner’s health such as, black lung disease, for instance, costs taxpayers around $1.5 billion, in addition to the incalculable suffering it exacts on the miners themselves and their families.
Unbelievably, the infatuation lives on.
Today, there are tremendous coal industry subsidies in the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES), H.R. 2454. This legislation, which has passed the House though not yet the Senate, includes $60 billion in support of carbon-capture-and-sequestration technology.
As oil continues to gush into the Gulf of Mexico from the Deepwater Horizon disaster, and as the Obama administration continues to approve new mountaintop removal coal mining permits, it has never been more obvious that America needs to aggressively pursue a clean energy future.
A critical first step in pursuing that future could be achieved if the Senate passed the Appalachia Restoration Act (S 696), which would sharply curtail mountaintop removal in the United States and protect the valleys, streams and communities that are being devastated by this destructive form of mining.
You can help make that happen. Could you take just a moment today to contact your Senators, and ask them to become a co-sponsor of the Appalachia Restoration Act?
There’s never been a more critical time to drive home the point about how mountaintop removal coal mining and a clean energy future don’t mix. Please, contact your Senators today and ask them to become a co-sponsor of the Appalachia Restoration Act (S 696).
In June, the 
Five days ago, we kicked off the Dear Companion tour in Lexington, KY in full force. We packed the house and many stopped by the iLoveMountains table to pick up materials and ask questions. The amazing part of doing this work in areas like Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Virginia is the stories you can come across. One of the ushers at the Lexington show stopped by and commented on how she had protested strip mining in Eastern Kentucky back in the 60’s. Others talked of family and friends in the region who have come and gone due to the the distressing effect mining has on the area. A young woman nabbed an I Love Mountains bumper sticker before rushing into the show calling over her shoulder, “I’m from Eastern Kentucky, I”m so glad they are doing this work..” 
After a great show in Knoxville, TN, Dear Companion took a small break in Louisville before working our way to Charleston, WV. On stage in Charleston, the Dear Companion crew showed no shyness in letting the audience know why they were doing this tour. The crowd was receptive and the boys received a standing ovation for their performance. Later that night, many of us jumped on bicycles and rode around town, enjoying the cooler climate and new scenery. 
It’s day five of the Dear Companion tour and we have landed in the small mountain town of Marlinton, WV. The town’s population is probably around 2,000. Nestled in Pocahontas County with the Greenbrier River running through, Marlinton is quiet and charming. I currently bring this update to you 
That’s the message the Obama administration sent last week when it proposed a new rule that would curtail pollution from coal-fired power plants in the eastern United States. According to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, the rule should improve air quality as far south as Texas and Florida and as far north as Minnesota and southern New England.
Last Thursday, activists with the 
Multiple reports and studies are showing how the coal industry receives billions of dollars in direct and indirect subsidies from US taxpayers.
