They call it the Environmental Protection Association. It has become anything, but that!

It is the the “EPA!” Every Protection Away!

I read the article in the Post regarding the removal of the ban on mining near streams but only saw one side of the story. I’m wondering what the other side of the story is. Bush spends a lot of time on his land during his vacations there, clearing brush to keep the possibility of forest fires down. So I believe he has a pretty good idea what good land management means and it would be good to have information on his reasoning for lifting a ban that protects our land and streams.

Fair question, Mr. Logic, about the other side of the story. The spokesman for the Office of Surface Mining said that the rule “strengthens what can and can’t be done in streams.”
The Washington Post quoted a “senior administration official” as saying that the revised rule would reduce the amount of waste going into Appalachian waterways. (That seems at odds with what a lot of folks, including public officials, are saying on the record.)
I think the coal industry response makes a bit more sense. They are saying that a clarified new rule was needed as a result of court rulings that in some cases limited mountaintop removal mining because of environmental effects. “This put jobs at risk and mining activities at risk,” Carol Raulston of the National Mining Association said.
In other words, if the rule was clearer, it would be harder for conservationists to sue.
Logic, if I’d have been doing a story for the paper, I would have talked to our companies in St. Louis to see what they think. One reason that I put this up as a quick blog is that I’ve been over to West Virgina twice to write about this kind of mining and seen up close what it’s all about. On one occasion, I spent an hour or so in a small airplane flying just above these denuded mountains and it was a sight to behold.

I believe the phrase is “Every Polluters Ally.”
This is yet another example of how politically available
the agency is and always have been.
Not new, just same #%$! different day!

Mr. Lambrecht, thanks very much for the additional information. I would agree with your assessment and am disappointed that the ban was lifted. I’m all for supporting out miners and businesses putting miners to work, but there HAS to be a happy medium between putting people to work and saving the environment. However, we won’t be seeing any type of happy medium with the incoming administration with Obama, Pelosi, Reid, and Waxman in charge. The pendulum will swing to saving the environment instead of jobs.

..supporting our miners..not “out” miners…

Far too often this argument is posed as between environmental protections and jobs. This is a false dichotomy created by an industry that has been proven intolerant of just about any regualtion, be it enviormental or job safety.

Mountain top removal is “convenient and efficient” for the coal companies. Whole sections of West Virginia and other states where this is practiced for other types of mining (gold and silver for one), have now been transformed from areas of beauty into wastelands.

This has never been about “jobs”. It has been about favors extended by Senator Byrd and most of the West Virginia delegation in Congress and in their state house to the coal companies.

After these mines are tapped out, I seriously doubt that the coal companies are going to do much if anything to renew the area they devastated. Of course if Arch Coal discovered coal in the Ozarks near the Lake of the Ozarks and Silver Dollar City, would you be in favor of similar practices here?