From Kos - Mountaintop Removal: The Perfect Symbol For America Today

[hatrack]

EDIT

It is safe to say that very few people in America give a shit about the mess the coal industry is making in Appalachia. Most seem to write it off as just the cost of doing business. The industry has a legal right to make a mess to turn a profit and leave the mess for the public to clean up. It must be written in the U.S. Constitution somewhere in special ink. Here is what saddens me. There is no big progressive campaign to stop the destructive process. Yes, there are plenty of local progressives slaving on a shoestring to generate awareness about mountaintop removal, but to little or no effect on a state or national level.

If you want to run for office in West Virginia or Kentucky, you have to pledge allegiance to the coal industry. I would love to hear an exception to that rule. We all know Alison Lundergan Grimes has to express her deep dissatisfaction with the federal "war on coal," including pesky regulations on mountaintop removal mining. We all know that she does not stand a chance against Mitch unless she toes the coal company line. As an elected official, you cannot say unkind things about the industry until you are ready to retire. The late Senator Robert Byrd is the perfect example.

State and many municipal governments are dependent on coal tax revenue to operate anywhere near the black. As a result, they all want to expand production from mountaintop removal mines. Coal junkies. They have no plan for a future beyond coal.

EDIT

The state of West Virginia partnered with the National Mining Association to sue the EPA to block a proposed conductivity standard. This standard which would make filling valleys with mining debris more difficult. They took preemptive legal against the EPA before the rule was even finalized. Anything to gum up the works. The state and industry already found one sympathetic judge. While they lost this round, odds are the coal industry will win eventually. The U.S. Supreme Court is quite fond of corporate rights. Should a Tea Party fundamentalist become President, the EPA will be dismantled. It will be full speed ahead with dynamiting Appalachia. Mountaintop removal mining is indeed the perfect symbol for a nation that has lost its very soul.

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http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/07/13/1313651/-Mountaintop-Removal-the-perfect-symbol-for-America

[Nihil]

1. Sad but true.

> Coal junkies. They have no plan for a future beyond coal.



> Yes, there are plenty of local progressives slaving on a shoestring to generate awareness
> about mountaintop removal, but to little or no effect on a state or national level.
> If you want to run for office in West Virginia or Kentucky, you have to pledge allegiance to the coal industry.

Also apparently applies if you want to run for national office when you consider the recent
moronic "amendments" proposed to screw any attempt to even stay in the same (losing) place
in the race to survice, never mind improve it.