Dear Mr. President,

Mr. President, I only request one thing. Use Google maps to look at a few aerial photographs of mountaintop removal mining. Then ask yourself a simple question, and answer it truthfully.

Is this the way you want your country to look?

The Environmental Protection Agency, under your appointment, has given energy companies permission keep destroying our mountains. The EPA has approved 42 more mountaintop removal permits. Mountains will be blasted away and the remains will be bulldozed into valleys, filling in streams. It's a policy that resembles Romania under Ceauşescu in the 1980s— what a beginning for U.S. environmental practices under your administration.

With the news of the EPA’s decision, it appears you and those you have appointed have no commitment to replacing this devastating policy with sustainable jobs. The region needs jobs that will support the health and well being of its residents. Their children should be allowed to grow up with respect and admiration for the beauty of the place they live. People should not have to watch the land they call home destroyed in order to be able to put food on their table.

Today’s granting of permits to coal companies completely disregards the vast and permanent environmental destruction that mountaintop removal mining leaves behind. This is its legacy for all Americans. All you have to do is look at it.

Dear Mr. President,

Mr. President, I only request one thing. Use Google maps to look at a few aerial photographs of mountaintop removal mining. Then ask yourself a simple question, and answer it truthfully.

Is this the way you want your country to look?

The Environmental Protection Agency, under your appointment, has given energy companies permission keep destroying our mountains. The EPA has approved 42 more mountaintop removal permits. Mountains will be blasted away and the remains will be bulldozed into valleys, filling in streams. It's a policy that resembles Romania under Ceauşescu in the 1980s— what a beginning for U.S. environmental practices under your administration.

With the news of the EPA’s decision, it appears you and those you have appointed have no commitment to replacing this devastating policy with sustainable jobs. The region needs jobs that will support the health and well being of its residents. Their children should be allowed to grow up with respect and admiration for the beauty of the place they live. People should not have to watch the land they call home destroyed in order to be able to put food on their table.

Today’s granting of permits to coal companies completely disregards the vast and permanent environmental destruction that mountaintop removal mining leaves behind. This is its legacy for all Americans. All you have to do is look at it.