Obama Admin Mountaintop Mining Moves Disappoint Activists

categories: Activism, Environmental Justice, Fossil Energy, Policy & Legislation

Published June 11, 2009 @ 11:28PM PT

Aerial view of mountaintop removal and reclamation landscapes, Big Coal River watershed.

The Obama administration has announced that it's taking some steps to rein in mountaintop removal mining of coal. Fast-tracked permit reviews will end; environmental reviews of proposed permits will be tougher; the federal government will renew watchdogging of state regulators that grant permits.

And the Obama White House is undoing another one of the Bush administration's last-minute rule changes, restoring a mandated 100-foot buffer zone that prevented companies from dumping coal mining waste close to streams.

All to the good, but enviro-advocates hoped for more: an outright end to the extremely destructive practice of mountaintop removal mining (MTR).

As Kate Sheppard reports for Grist,

Anti-MTR groups want to see the Obama administration restore language preventing the dumping of mine waste into waterways, reversing a change to the law that the Bush administration made shortly after taking office. The Bush administration in 2002 altered Clean Water Act rules to make it legal to fill valleys with waste from blast sites, which led to significantly increased use of MTR.

Kate writes that Nancy Sutley, head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, told reporters yesterday that "the Obama administration has serious concerns about the impacts of mountaintop removal on natural resources and the health and welfare of the communities of Appalachia,” but MTR "is a practice allowed by law ... Until that changes, we have to use the tools that we have.”

The administration has approved 42 out of 48 MTR permit requests since March. “That should raise red flags," Stephanie Pistello of Alliance for Appalachia and Appalachian Voices told Grist. Clearly the law is not sufficient for the protection of the people and environment of Appalachia.”

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Comments (1)

If industry had to pay the True costs of mining, we would quickly see that fossil fuel based energy is far more expensive than renewable based energy. It's only the perverse incentives that disguise this fact. The enourmous use and abuse of the environment by coal/oil/NG goes largely untaxed or unfined, while we continue to tax profits from actual production on wind/solar/geothermal and other renewables. Of course, we shoudl add the cost of defending foreign oil fields with our hyper-expensive military as well. We need to move towards a Geonomic system of Capitilism . If you agree, please sign my petition here:
http://www.change.org/actions/view/a_new_form_of_capitalism_geonomics

Posted by Scott Baker on 06/12/2009 @ 07:00AM PT
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