Mountaintop Removal Mining – The Beginning of the End? – I have written here a number of times about the crime of mountaintop removal mining, most recently in “Appalachia’s Agony”. Now the EPA has responded, finally, to the SOS of the residents of West Virginia, Kentucky and the other states where the mining companies have ripped their ancient mountains apart and devastated their communities. The “NY Times” reports today that EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson “…planned an aggressive review of permit requests for mountaintop coal mining, citing concerns about potential harm to water quality.” That’s not the half of it, Ms. Jackson, but it’ll do for a start. Jackson said, in this EPA press release: “EPA will use the best science and follow the letter of the law in ensuring we are protecting our environment.”
Earthjustice – “because the earth needs a good lawyer” – said, in this statement, the EPA’s action demonstrates “…a fresh perspective on the need to completely review the destructive impact that mountaintop removal mining has on streams and water quality throughout Appalachia.”
Don’t believe me? Listen to the folks at iLoveMountains.org who are fighting for their communities, their land and waters.
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“Endangerment” – That’s the term that EPA uses when they find something within their regulatory orbit that endangers the public’s health and welfare. They have issued an “endangerment finding” for greenhouse gas emissions, and have asked, as the law requires, the White House Office of Management and Budget to review their finding and allow EPA to finalize it. (There were strong signals of this move a couple of weeks ago at the same time that EPA was jumpstarting the process of creating a national GHG Registry.)
Should OMB allow the finding to go forward – what are the odds, given that President Obama hired the EPA Administrator and the OMB Director? – then the EPA will have a public comment period and then get down to cases about how best to subject all manner of projects and processes to environmental review for greenhouse gases. Here is the “WaPo” on this historic moment.
This finding, as all the commentators note, will further spur Congress to action. Congress, at the end of the day, has to, for all sorts of reasons, provide the country with a robust, effective and far-reaching climate change and clean energy program.