When most of us flip on the lights (or type into our computers, for that matter), we aren’t thinking about how those simple acts might affect those living in coal country. Yet nearly half of the country’s electricity is generated by coal, and increasingly that coal is being More…
First it was Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) urging an outright ban on mountaintop mining in lieu of new EPA restrictions. And now Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) is echoing that message, issuing a statement that calls on Congress to take up legislation that More…
Environmentalists might be applauding the Obama administration’s new restrictions on mountaintop coal mining as the most significant step the government has ever taken to rein in the practice. But don’t tell that to Sen. Lamar Alexander. The Tennessee Republican is calling for a full ban (not More…
In a show that the Obama administration is serious about putting the teeth back into the Clean Water Act, the Environmental Protection Agency today jump-started a process that could kill one of the largest mountaintop coal mining operations ever allowed in Appalachia. The decision — which is already being attacked More…
By all accounts, it was quite a show last night in Charleston, W.Va., where Don Blankenship, president of Virginia-based Massey Energy, squared off against environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over the hot-button (and increasingly high-profile) topic of mountaintop coal mining. But the money quote, via More…
Some of the nation’s top environmental scientists are calling on the Obama administration to end the destructive practice of mountaintop coal mining, saying that the environmental holocaust it creates is irreversible.
In an article appearing in the journal Science tomorrow, the scientists will present new evidence they say “unequivocally documents More…
The collision between environmental protection and coal extraction is nothing new to the Appalachian states, which are home to some of the largest coal deposits in the world. But in the middle of an unemployment crisis — and with a new administration showing signs of cracking down harshly More…
As Kate pointed out a few weeks back, the Environmental Protection Agency earlier this month stalled 79 applications for new surface mines in the Appalachian Mountains, citing concerns that those operations would harm local water quality. Today, the agency went a step further, announcing in a More…
Whatever else there is to be said about mountaintop mining (and there’s plenty), no one can deny that it makes a place ugly. How could it not? The technique involves the blasting away of mountain peaks to get at the coal inside, leaving oceans More…
Missed this over the long holiday weekend, but The Washington Post on Friday published a biting op-ed from Robert Kennedy Jr. in which the prominent environmental activist calls mountaintop coal mining “the worst environmental tragedy in American history” and attacks the Obama administration for doing far too little to More…
rss