Beth Vorhees reporting on WV Public Broadcast: (audio)

On questions like this and another one on mountaintop removal mining Obama didn’t take firm positions. instead he discussed how he approaches controversial issues.

Obama:

My job as President and one of the keys of the Federal Government is to listen to and work with local and state officials who are knowledgeable about these issues whether its a Governor or the mayor or Senators so that we can make this work properly. One thing I can promise you I won’t do though, is I’m not just going to take a bunch of contributions from the coal industry and then just do their bidding, anymore than I would just listen to the environmentalists. I want to listen to everybody, get everybody’s point of view, and then make the best decision for the people of West Virginia.

Also, Larry Gibson of Kayford Mountain was able to ask Obama a question about MTR and the Clean Water Protection Act. Obama mentioned Bush’s weakening of the Clean Water Act, and committed to strengthening the Clean Water Act.

Lots of buzz on the net regarding Hillary’s take on MTR yesterday. Of the 400+ comments I saw, I didn’t see one person defend her position. Even some of her supporter were up in arms.
Here’s a sample.

David Sassoon over at Solve Climate:

Hillary Clinton Flunks Coal on West Virginia Public Radio:
…No, Senator Clinton, the challenge is, how are we going to stop using coal.

It’s gets worse…

Jesse Jenkins over at WattHead:

Sure sounds like Hillary has drunk the (sour) kool-aid being peddled by coal-front group “Americans for Balanced Energy Choices” (or ABEC, which might as well stand for “American Blowhards Excited about Coal”). Lets compare what Hillary is stumping and what the coal industry’s PR machine has to say:

# Clinton says: “Coal fits in very importantly because obviously, we have a great reserve of coal.”

# Coal industry astroturf campaign says: “Coal is our most abundant fuel. The United States has more coal than any other fuel. A quarter of all of the known coal in the entire world is here in America.”

He goes on, quite entertainingly…

David Roberts over at Grist and Huffington Post:

Her answer was, in my eyes, terribly disappointing.

Eric at RaisingKaine:

…especially for a President. I don’t want to hear that she recognizes that its a difficult situation, I’d like to hear an answer thats proactive and perhaps creative, that’ address both the economic and environmental problems.

Clem Gulatta at WVaBlue

I hope someone asks both Hillary and Obama follow up questions about MTR…both Hillary and Obama know enough about the issue they should not be allowed to weasel out of an answer.

I’d also to know what kind of economic assistance they would be willing to the Appalachian region when there are major economic impacts from their proposed cap-and-trade regimes for carbon emissions. Will it be help directly to workers, consumers, and local citizens or will it be another infusion of corporate welfare like the Bush administration is providing Wall Street this week?

Hillary supporter mgee at MyDD:

I was concerned with Clinton’s hedging on MTR as well; she’s too careful on the subject, as she wants to maintain her lead in WVa – hence, her nod toward coal interests, which the coal barons have always told us (wrongly) are miners’ interests, as well.

I’m disappointed; I say that as a Clinton supporter, and an opponent of MTR.

Prankster at DailyKos:

Hillary Sides with Coal Fat Cats. What Will Barack Do?:
Hillary Clinton went on West Virginia Public Radio this morning and refused to condemn the practice of mountaintop removal mining in West Virginia. To make matter worse, Hillary appeared to support building at least 10 new coal fired power plants, casting her lot with the promoters of so-called “clean coal.”

From the comments of the App Voices blog-post below this one at DailyKos:

Fishoutofwater: hard to believe she has been sitting in on committee meetings on mountaintop removal based on her words here.
karateexplosions:Ending mountaintop removal is necessary, in my opinion, but it is only a first step, and concurrent steps need to be taken to nurture better, healthier economic growth for that region (WV, KY, VA, et al.)
polecat: You’re kidding, right?…After the whole thing has been BULLDOZED you want to put it back?… Blows my mind — even a tyro’s grasp of the subject should yield a better answer than THAT!
jhutson: Clinton is acting willfully ignorant when she speaks of “recovering” these mountaintops. This is not recovery; this is killing jobs, killing streams, and killing some of the most bio-diverse forest habitat on the planet.

And that excludes some of the nastier responses. So, needless to say, people across the country were NOT pleased with her answer.

Update: I’ll keep adding these throughout the day…

Jamie Henn at ItsGettingHotinHere:

Clinton: “Maybe there’s a way to recover those mountaintops . . .”
There is so much wrong with this response. We need to find ways to retrieve the coal? Here’s a better idea: stop burning it in the first place. And I’m sorry, but since when was it “practical” to blow the tops of mountains, destroy communities, threaten people’s lives, and subvert the political process so that corporations could make an extra buck for bribing judges and politicians with?

Clinton’s wavering is another reminder of why it’s so important to continue taking action to fight coal.

DanaWV from her own post on ItsGettingHotinHere:

My favorite part is when she critiques the Bush Administration for canceling the Future Gen Boondoggle Coal plant in Illinois, which means folks — SHE HAS LESS SENSE ABOUT COAL THAN THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION. And in case you don’t have time to listen — she also likes Mountain Top Removal Coal mining. Thanks Hill.

blueheartinaredstate at The Young Turks:

I’ve lived and worked with the Forest Service in western Virginia and eastern Kentucky. I believe in timber harvest when it’s done. I believe in multiple use of the land, so I ain’t no bleeding heart, granola eating tree-hugger.

Nothing, nothing you’ve ever seen compares to standing on Pine Mountain on the border between Virginia and Kentucky and seeing the moonscape strip mining has made of the mountains. I’ve been trained as both a forest ecologist, geologist and soil scientist. I’ve worked on research projects that try to find vegetation that will live and grow on the land after it’s been strip mined. It ain’t easy. It will take many hundreds of years to “reclaim” this land. The best you can hope for is that you can get enough veg to grow so the whole hillside won’t erode or slide.

captainkona at the WhitesCreek Journal:

Her answer shows two things very clearly:

1) She has no clue what she’s talking about.

2) She will sell the environment to the highest bidders.

LOL! This person wants to be the Dem nominee? She sounded like Bush with the incoherent banter.

Beth Vorhees interviews Hillary Clinton on West Virginia Public Broadcast: (audio)

Hillary on MTR: (unofficial transcript)

I am concerned about it for all the reasons people state, but I think its a difficult question because of the conflict between the economic and environmental trade-off that you have here. I’m not an expert. I don’t know enough to have an independent opinion, but I sure would like people who could be objective, understanding both the economic necessities and environmental damage to come up with some approach that would enable us to retrieve the coal but would enable us to do it in a way that wouldn’t damage the living standards and the other important qualities associated with people living both under the mountaintop and people who are along the streams. You know, maybe there is a way to recover those mountaintops once they have been stripped of the coal. You know, I think we’ve got to look at this from a practical perspective.

First, I am glad to see any Presidential candidate speaking about mountaintop removal. Her answer could have been much better, for sure, but it also could have been much worse.
Secondly, I am disappointed that she is setting up this false dichotomy of “economic necessities” vs “environmental damage.” Mountaintop removal does the same thing to our economy as it does to our mountains. The destruction of one and the destruction of the other go hand in hand.

Thirdly, Hillary Clinton has sat in on Committee hearings about mountaintop removal since 2002. She should know a thing or two about the issue. She also told folks from the region that she would join them on a flyover of affected areas, but that hasn’t happened either. Although, we’d still be glad to have her.

Listen to the whole thing here.

If coal waste can change the color of a penny in a few minutes, what do you think it does to children exposed from birth over the course of a lifetime?

Here’s a metric on how to measure our success over the last several years – a look at anti-MTR activity at the state level.

Kentucky
This year, the “stream-saver bill” was re-introduced, and over 1200 people joined our friends at KFTC for I Love Mountains Day at the State Capitol in Frankfort to lobby for the bill. The “Stream-Saver Bill” would stop the dumping of MTR waste into KY streams. Pro-mountain activists picked up additional co-sponsors, making an impression on every state legislator, and getting great press all over the state. Kentuckians of all stripes came out for one of the most massive grassroots lobbying days in recent memory. The bill, previously not paid much attention to, received a favorable 13-12 vote in Committee, but unfortunately was two votes shy of passing. Consider joining KFTC and other Kentuckians for the annual “I Love Mountains Lobby Day” next February 14th, when an even stronger push will be made to pass the bill.

Virginia
Dominion Power is THE political powerhouse in Richmond and across the state of Virginia. But for the first time in recent history, an statewide grassroots organizing effort by the folks at SAMS, Appalachian Voices, Sierra Club, and CCAN among others, has required Dominion to pull out all the stops in their attempts to build a dirty coal-fired power plant in Wise County Virginia. Dozens of residents from Wise County went all the way to Richmond to testify at a State Corporation Commission hearing. Plus, the younger generation is just getting started. Over 500 students from Virginia attended this year’s “Powershift” conference, helping make stopping mountaintop removal a central focus of the event. Virginia also has 3 Congressional Representatives who are co-sponsoring the federal Clean Water Protection Act (HR 2169) (two Democrats and a Republican). Thats compared to just one last session. And because of statewide efforts in the last several months, but particularly strong organizing in SW VA, what was once a sure-fire bet that Dominion would get its dirty coal-plant, is now a wide-open debate because of public pressure. As all eyes turn to Governor Kaine to stop the plant, the focus is on gaining signatures for a mile long peteition opposing the plant, to be delivered to Dominion’s CEO and shareholders at their April meeting.

Tennessee
For the first time in the recent past, due to the efforts of our friends out at SOCM, UMD, and Creation Care, they now have an anti-MTR bill called the “Scenic Views” bill. Metro Pulse has a great rundown here. Coal is a very small part of the state economy, but has the potential to destroy much of the state’s beloved outdoors in places like the Royal Blue Wildlife Management Area. Just east of the coal seams in Tennessee, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the most visited Park in the National Park system. But Tennessee’s “Scenic Views” Legislation has been introduced by a Republican named Raymond Finney.

West Virginia
West Virginia is the stronghold of King Coal’s domain. For instance, from a recent WVGazette Editorial:

Senators Don Caruth, Clark Barnes, Frank Deem, Mike Hall, Ron Stollings, Joe Minard, Erik Wells and John Yoder killed a bill pending before their legislative committee that would have better protected West Virginia coal miners who would like to speak up about unsafe work conditions.

Not exactly the most friendly territory for someone fighting coal on the side of public interest. However, this year, anti-MTR legislation was introduced in West Virginia of all places. The bill is SB 588.

The big picture is that the grassroots efforts to stop mountaintop removal are growing at an enormous rate. And not only that, but we are increasingly successful at getting this issue in front of our legislators and asking them to go on record with us, or against us. The federal Clean Water Protection Act (HR 2169) has 129 co-sponsors already, with a year to go – after ending last session with 77 co-sponsors. Both the Democratic and Republican front-runners for President are talking about mountaintop removal, and seem inclined to oppose it.

But these are not yet victories. A victory will be the day a Governor or a President signs into law a bill which stops mountaintop removal. Until then, we are just “getting there.”

I should also add, now is a great time to join one of the grassroots groups in your area in carrying these fights to your state legislators. iLoveMountains.org has a decent rundown of organizations involved in fighting mountaintop removal.

Check out this EXCELLENT in-depth interview on WNRN’s Sunday Morning Wake-Up Call featuring our very own Mike McCoy and Tom Cormans.

Mike and Tom answer caller’s questions and talk about the growing campaign to stop the proposed Wise County Power Plant, which Dominion admits will NOT use carbon capture. Check it out!

Great work!

Congratulations to our friends at the Dogwood Alliance. Read more about their excellent campaign with Abitibi-BoWater here. (.pdf)

A Leap Forward –Environmental Organizations Help Paper Company Become Better Steward of Southern Forests
Contact: Scot Quaranda, Dogwood Alliance, 828.251.2525 x18

Asheville, NC – On February 29, 2008, Dogwood Alliance released a report, “Southern Forests & Bowater, Inc.: Progress Report July 2006 – July 2007,” detailing the leap forward Bowater (now AbitibiBowater) made in honoring its commitment to improve forestry practices in the Southern US and in protecting forests of ecological significance on the Cumberland Plateau of Eastern Kentucky, Central Tennessee and Northern Alabama. The report does not address concerns with AbitibiBowater’s forest practices in the Canadian Boreal forest.

In June 2005, a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed between Dogwood Alliance, NRDC and Greenville, SC based Bowater, Inc. which set the standard for improved management of the Southern United States working forest landscape. Though in October of 2007, Bowater merged with Abitibi Consolidated to become AbitibiBowater, the terms of the MOU remain in effect for all of the AbitibiBowater mills in the US formerly owned by Bowater. The report details progress the company made over the second year of implementing the commitments contained in the MOU.

…

“AbitibiBowater has demonstrated that working together, we can end the conversion of natural forests to plantations and protect special places in the largest paper producing region in the world,” said Danna Smith, Policy Director for Dogwood Alliance. “While AbitibiBowater has taken a leap forward, the largest paper producer in the region, International Paper, continues to cling to out-dated practices that are destroying some of North America’s most unique forests in the Cumberland Plateau and Southern Swampland regions of the Southern US.”

…

Highlights from the progress report include:
• An end to the conversion of all natural forests to pine plantations on Bowater’s forestland – making it the first paper company in the South to formally discontinue this ecologically destructive practice.
• Steps taken by the company to discourage others from converting natural forests to plantations including: notifying landowners supplying it with wood fiber that it will no longer purchase any fiber from plantations established in 2008 and beyond at the expense of natural forests; tracking plantation conversion in its’ Verifiable Fiber Tracking program; and, exploring the use of satellite imagery analysis as a means of identifying natural forests converted to plantations in 2008 and beyond so that it can avoid purchases of wood from these plantations in the future.
• Protection of ecologically important land on the Cumberland Plateau. Over the past year, 16,000 acres of forests once owned by Bowater, has been transferred to the state of Tennessee for conservation purposes, representing more than 25% of the land sold by Bowater during this period.

International Paper’s indiscriminate use of large quantities of wood for its paper mills continues to have significant negative impacts on forests of high conservation value in the Southern US, including in the Cumberland Plateau and the wetland forests of the Mid-Atlantic Coastal region. IP has been a leading force behind the conversion of millions of acres of natural forests and wetlands in the South to sterile pine plantations.

“As others in the paper industry embrace the need for change and make progress, International Paper continues to make excuses,” said Smith. “Dogwood Alliance is escalating its efforts to pressure the company to take meaningful action to protect Southern forests and communities.”

In addition to working with IP’s largest customers in the office supply sector like Staples and Office Depot, Dogwood Alliance recently launched an effort targeting IP’s large corporate consumers of paper packaging such as Yum! Brand Foods (parent company of KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and more) and McDonald’s of the fast food sector and Procter & Gamble and Unilever in the health and beauty sector to convince them to hold IP to a high environmental standard or find alternative, more environmentally progressive paper suppliers.

To read and download the full report, visit: https://www.dogwoodalliance.org/images/pdfs/bowaterprogressreport2007.pdf

# # #

Dogwood Alliance is the only organization in the Southern United States holding corporations accountable for the impact of their industrial forestry practices on our forests and communities. In addition to holding the office supply industry accountable to their environmental commitments, Dogwood Alliance is working to stop the destructive practices of the paper packaging sector. Visit www.dogwoodalliance.org for more information.

An important editorial this Sunday in the Washington Post, by celebrated author Jeff Biggers, who is emerging as one of our leading national voices about the injustices of mountaintop removal.

Clean Coal? Don’t Try to Shovel that.

Every time I hear our political leaders talk about “clean coal,” I think about Burl, an irascible old coal miner in West Virginia. After 35 years underground, he struggled to conjure enough breath to match his storytelling verve, as if the iron hoops of a whiskey barrel had been strapped around his lungs. In 1983, during my first visit to Appalachia as a young man, Burl rolled up his pants and showed me the leg that had been mangled in a mining accident. The scars snaked down to his ankles.

“My grandpa barely survived an accident in the mines in southern Illinois,” I told him. “He had these blue marks and bits of coal buried in his face.”

“Coal tattoo,” Burl wheezed. “Don’t let anyone ever tell you that coal is clean.”

Mr. Biggers absolutely skewers the politicians, and willfully ignorant environmentalists who continue to support “clean coal.”

Orwellian language has led to Orwellian politics. With the imaginary vocabulary of “clean coal,” too many Democrats and Republicans, as well as a surprising number of environmentalists, have forgotten the dirty realities of extracting coal from the earth. Pummeled by warnings that global warming is triggering the apocalypse, Americans have fallen for the ruse of futuristic science that is clean coal. And in the meantime, swaths of the country are being destroyed before our eyes.

Here’s the hog-killing reality that a coal miner like Burl or my grandfather knew firsthand: No matter how “cap ‘n trade” schemes pan out in the distant future for coal-fired plants, strip mining and underground coal mining remain the dirtiest and most destructive ways of making energy.

Coal ain’t clean. Coal is deadly.

More than 104,000 miners in America have died in coal mines since 1900. Twice as many have died from black lung disease. Dangerous pollutants, including mercury, filter into our air and water. The injuries and deaths caused by overburdened coal trucks are innumerable. Yet even on the heels of a recent report revealing that in the last six years the Mine Safety and Health Administration decided not to assess fines for more than 4,000 violations, Bush administration officials have called for cutting mine-safety funds by 6.5 percent. Have they already forgotten the coal miners who were entombed underground in Utah last summer?

Above ground, millions of acres across 36 states have been dynamited, torn and churned into bits by strip mining in the last 150 years. More than 60 percent of all coal mined in the United States today, in fact, comes from strip mines.

In the “United States of Coal,” Appalachia has become the poster child for strip mining’s worst depravations, which come in the form of mountaintop removal. An estimated 750,000 to 1 million acres of hardwood forests, a thousand miles of waterways and more than 470 mountains and their surrounding communities — an area the size of Delaware — have been erased from the southeastern mountain range in the last two decades. Thousands of tons of explosives — the equivalent of several Hiroshima atomic bombs — are set off in Appalachian communities every year.

How can anyone call this clean?

Read the rest here, and tell your legislators to stop using the misnomer of “clean coal.”

Ol’ King Coal himself, the President of the Kentucky Coal Association Bill Caylor has some words of encouragement for us in response to an excellent anti-MTR op-ed in the Tampa Tribune called Put an End to Mountaintop Mining:

Bill Caylor everybody!

So, as all the activists who so eloquently and passionately speak of the ills of coal and mountaintop mining get up in the morning, drink their hot coffee, eat some toast, blow dry their hair while watching the morning news, attend their meetings in a room with lights and warm heat and write to their representatives on laptops and computers while calling others on their charged cell phones, please remember who provides the electricity.

It is provided by coal.

And he’s right, though coal is decreasing in importance as we realize the devastating impacts of mountaintop removal and global warming on our planet and our future. But as long as buffoons like Bill Caylor run things, we will be getting our electricity from MOUNTAINTOP REMOVAL COAL. So, write your representative and ask them to co-sponsor the Clean Water Protection Act (HR 2169)!

…Also, you might want to quit drying your hair

Check out our stylin’ Conservation Director Matt Wasson on EarthBeat Radio.

Mike Tidwell hosts Dr. Wasson, along with Patrice Sims of NRDC, Cale Jaffey of Southern Environmental Law Center (the lead attorney on the fight against the Wise County Power Plant), Kathy Selvage of SAMS, and Nick Miroff of the Washington Post who recently penned a fascinating article on pain-killer and drug addiction among miners.

Listen up for the latest news on the national “coal scene”, as well as the specifics of the unneccesary coal-fired power plant in Wise County, VA.

Senator Byrd (D-WV) has been admitted to Walter Reed Hospital, and will stay overnight due to a fall he took on Monday. Senator Byrd is 90 years old, and is the longest serving Congressperson in history. As President Pro Tempore of the Senate, he is also third in line to the Presidency after Dick Cheney and Nancy Pelosi.

Tonight we put aside our differences and send our best wishes out to his family, and to Senator Byrd who has served West Virginia and this country with honor and distinction.

Despite his age (90), and due surely in part to his unusual vigor, the injuries do not appear to be life-threatening.

From The Hill:

“They’re keeping him overnight; I’m assuming against his will.”

From the WVMetroNews:

Senator Robert. C. Byrd is under observation in a Washington, D.C. hospital after complaining of back pain following a fall Monday at his home in Virginia.

The 90-year-old Senator from West Virginia was at the Capitol Tuesday for a vote regarding an Indian health bill.

There he was advised by staff members to see the Capitol physician after they witnessed him wincing in pain.

It is not known if Byrd suffered any broken bones from the fall, but as a precaution he was admitted to Walter Reed Medical Center.

Best wishes for a full and speedy recovery Senator!

Update: Senator John Warner (R-VA), it turns out, also just took a non-emergency trip to visit to the hospital due to a return of atrial fibrillation.

Senator Warner recently experienced a return of atrial fibrillation, and in consultation with the Capitol Physician’s Office and his private doctors, is pursuing a re-evaluation and readjustment of medications which require regular monitoring and observation within a hospital environment.

Yesterday, Senator Warner came to his office, consulted with the Capitol Physician, completed his office appointments and left for a scheduled admission to Inova Fairfax Hospital, where he remains for observation.

Senator Warner, 81, is also a distinguished veteran, former Secretary of the Navy, and former chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Our thoughts and prayers are with you Senator.