…and big coal is out!

So says this morning’s Lexington Herald-Leader:

Kentucky’s history of unquestioning homage to the coal industry puts it at odds with marketplace trends.

In recent weeks, we’ve read that proposals for at least 16 coal-fired power plants around the country have been scrapped.

Please go check out the whole piece. It’s a good one, and its not coming from the NYT…its coming from Kentucky!

Check out these comments from the Stream Buffer Zone Rule hearings:

[bumped, due to Mr. Gore’s strong showing in a recent New Hampshire primary poll – J-dub]

Hear what one movie director, Vice-President, Senator, and Tennessean thinks about mountaintop removal:

Congrats to our friends at SACE!

Unofficial transcript:

Hi Mr. President…uh…Mr. Gore rather
My name is —–. Im a student at UNC and I work with the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy.

Coal mining here in the Appalachians is destroying our communities. New technology for coal combustion claims to be cleaner, but should we really be promoting this technology while it is so destructive to our land?

A: No. [applause] Not if the coal is removed in a way that destroys the land. I’m really troubled by what’s been going on in parts of West Virginia and Kentucky in particular. Maybe you’ve seen the pictures as I have. Maybe you’ve been there and seen it in person. But often you’ll have one row of hills next to the major highways that people drive on that still look beautiful and pristine and then one row over they cut the tops off mountains, and then they dump the soil and rock in ways that sometimes block up and fill(?) the streams and pollute the streams. Strip-mining is a metaphor but it’s also a reality in its own right, and it stands for an irresponsible approach to unsustainable development. If the coal is removed in a way that enriches the present generation at the expense at the expense of the prospects for all future generations, that’s just plain wrong. In the present generation, we have a responsibility, YOU have a responsibility to insist on ethical behavior in ways that will prevent people who are overwhelmed by greed from going about that in a way that causes lasting harm to all future generations. And that’s been going on in a lot places, and this mountaintop removal is one of the clearest most visible examples of it. There was an economist, I think Herman Daly was the guy who said this years ago. He said “we’re operating planet earth as if it was a business in liquidation”, and the mountaintop removal that you’re talking about is one of the clearest examples of what he meant by that. And we have a responsibility to keep that from happening, so I’m with you all the way.

Proving the across-the-board support for the Clean Water Protection Act (HR 2169), I just learned that Republicans for Environmental Protection (REP) has endorsed the Clean Water Protection Act! They also came out on our side against the Bush Administrations attempts to repeal the Stream Buffer Zone Rule.

Republicans, Democrats, conservatives, liberals, moderates, independents…America agrees, mountaintop removal coal-mining, and the poisoning of the Appalachian people needs to stop as soon as possible.

REP:

There is nothing even remotely conservative about allowing special-interest greed to trump our fundamental duty as stewards of God’s own handiwork,” said David Jenkins, REP Government Affairs Director…

…”The loophole that allows coal mining companies to use the waters of the United States as free garbage cans needs to be closed,” DiPeso said.
A bill that would help is the bipartisan Clean Water Protection Act (HR 2169).
“This bill would re-affirm the original intent of the Clean Water Act by explicitly barring the use of water bodies as waste dumps,” Jenkins said. “We thank Congressmen Wayne Gilchrest (MD), John McHugh (NY), Todd Platts (PA), and Christopher Shays (CT) for co-sponsoring this important legislation.”

Even though most self-identified Republicans we talk to think mountaintop removal is awful and needs to stop, many Republican Congressmen and women are not as responsive.

6 of our 105 co-sponsors are Republicans:
Chris Shays (CT-04)
Wayne Gilchrest (MD-01)
John McHugh (NY-23)
Todd Platts (PA-19)
Mark Kirk (IL-10)
Frank Wolf (VA-10)

That number needs to be much higher. Lets keep the pressure on our elected officials from both parties!

You know him. You love him. You respect him. Now Vote for Larry Gibson as your favorite “CNN Hero”

CNN Heroes culminates in a live global telecast December 6, hosted by CNN’s Anderson Cooper. This event honors the most outstanding viewer-nominated CNN Heroes as chosen by a blue-ribbon panel of world leaders and luminaries. Our salute to ordinary people doing extraordinary things

Voting closes on MONDAY, so immediately send this link to your friends, friends of friends, family, friends of family, and strangers! Larry deserves this, and we can help him get it!

The following US Congrssmen and women sent a letter to OSMRE this week requesting a 90-day extension of the public comment period for the Bush Administrations propsed repeal of the Stream Buffer Zone Rule:

Thanks to them, the public may have a chance to stop this thing yet. Text of the letter below…

October 2, 2007

The Honorable Dirk Kempthorne
Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior
1849 C Street, N.W.
Washington DC 20240

Dear Secretary Kempthorne,

On Friday, August 24, 2007 the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSM) submitted a new regulation that would allow companies to dump hazardous fill material directly into water ways and streams, permanently destroying them.

The Proposed Rulemaking on “Excess Spoil, Coal Mine Waste, and Buffers for Waters of the United States,” 72 Fed. Reg. 48890 would repeal a 1983 regulation, adopted by the Reagan Administration, which protects streams from coal mining activities by creating a 100-foot buffer zone around them, unless the activity will cause no harm to the water course. We are requesting that OSM provide a 90-day extension of the Public Comment Period for the Proposed Rulemaking.

The magnitude of the documents that must be reviewed, the diversity and severity of impacts this proposed rule would have on different communities in many states and the need for citizens living in affected communities to understand those impacts and develop comments based on sound legal and scientific analysis, all make it clearly impossible, under the current schedule, for citizens to provide OSM with comments that can include the information your agency must have in order to make an informed decision about the Proposed Rulemaking.

In addition, we are requesting that your agency hold at least one full-day public hearing on the Proposed Rulemaking, in which the scientific and legal basis of the Proposed Rulemaking is more thoroughly explained, and in which citizens may submit oral and written testimony, including questions that your agency will answer.

It is simply inappropriate to allow the excess spoil from this type of mining to be dumped in mountain streams, polluting waterways, filling valleys, and in some cases, potentially endangering the lives of area residents. A 90 day extension of the Public Comment Period and transparent public hearings are essential in order to achieve a competent review of this Proposed Rulemaking.

Thank you for your attention to this matter. We look forward to continuing to work together.

Sincerely,

Rep. Frank Pallone (NJ-06)
Rep. Chris Shays (CT-04)
Rep. Heath Shuler (NC-11)
Rep. Ben Chandler (KY-06)
Rep. John Yarmuth (KY-03)
Rep. Jim Cooper (TN-05)
Rep. Henry Waxman (CA-30)
Rep. Todd Platts (PA-19)
Rep. John McHugh (NY-23)
Rep. Wayne Gilchrest (MD-01)
Rep. Jay Inslee (WA-01)
Rep. Earl Blumenaur (OR-03)
Rep. Dennis Kucinich (OH-10)
Rep. Tom Allen (ME-01)
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC-AL)
Rep. Barney Frank (MA-04)
Rep. Jim McDermott (WA-07)
Rep. Donald Payne (NJ-10)
Rep. Raul Grijalva (AZ-07)
Rep. Lois Capps (CA-23)
Rep. Jan Schakowsky (IL-09)
Rep. Maurice Hinchey (NY-22)
Rep. Patrick Kennedy (RI-01)
Rep. Ed Markey (MA-07)

This will be worth at least 2 cups of coffee for me this mornin:

Our dear friend Jeff Biggers points us in the direction of this powerful New Yorker ad.

This gist of which is:

THERE IS A ‘SILVER BULLET’ FOR SOLVING GLOBAL WARMING…

——————————————————————————–

NO MORE COAL

Check it out.

New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is using the same powers his predecessor Eliot Spitzer used to investigate corruption on Wall Street. But instead of financial markets, Cuomo has his eyes set on five power companies: AES Corporation, Dominion, Dynegy, Peabody Energy and Xcel Energy. New York will investigate whether these companies are failing to disclose hidden costs for new coal-fired power plants to their investors.

In letters accompanying the subpoenas, the attorney general’s office asked whether investors received adequate information about the potential financial liabilities of carbon dioxide emissions that exacerbate climate change.

“Any one of the several new or likely regulatory initiatives for CO2 emissions from power plants — including state carbon controls, E.P.A.’s regulations under the Clean Air Act, or the enactment of federal global warming legislation — would add a significant cost to carbon-intensive coal generation,” the letters said.

Its refreshing to see these creative strategies used in a system that is stacked completely in favor of large coal-companies (on both the extraction-side and the emissions-side of using coal.)

The coal-companies are pathetically funny in their attempts to play victim while destroying Appalachia and emitting lethal levels of carbon:

[A Peadbody spokesman] called the New York action “outrageous,” adding, “The legal system was designed to protect — not harass — those such as Peabody who are providing clean energy solutions for America.”

…Peabody, by the way, is the worlds largest coal company and is already doing business in Beijing, where people outnumber environmental regulations 1 billion-to-one. Not to mention that they are behind new power plants in Illinois, Kentucky, and New Mexico.

I could cry, but since they are getting their butts dragged in front of an unsympathetic court (for once), I think I’ll just laugh…maybe throw in a Snoopy dance.

A lot of news to be catching up on after a short break for much of our staff.

I wanted to share this great piece by our friend Jeff Biggers over at Salon.com, its called “In Coal Blood,” and chronicles the hardship of the miners in Utah, Sago, and elsewhere, along with a little family history from Mr. Biggers, who is one of the best writers on coal issues that we’ve got.

Check it out

One of those not-so-funny-cause-its-true funnies:

bumped from last week-jw

Perhaps the biggest news of the day is that the New York Times today published an editorial blasting efforts by the Bush Administration to expand mountaintop removal.

Its great, and also gives a word of support for the Clean Water Protection Act (H.R. 2169) in the last paragraph.

NYT: Ravaging Appalachia