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Today's Top News
US Seeks to End Bush Mountaintop Coal Mining Rule
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Interior Department said on Monday it will try to overturn a Bush administration rule that made it easier for coal mining companies to dump mountaintop debris into valley streams.
Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar in a file photo. (REUTERS/Max Whittaker) Calling the rule "bad policy," Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said he will ask the Justice Department to go to the courts to withdraw the Bush regulation and send it back to Interior to stop the policy.
Salazar said the Bush-era rule allowed coal mine operators to use "the cheapest and most convenient disposal option" for mountaintop fill.
"We must responsibly develop our coal supplies to help us achieve energy independence, but we cannot do so without appropriately assessing the impact such development might have on local communities and natural habitat and the species it supports," Salazar said.
Under the Bush rule, coal mine operators can dispose of excess mountaintop debris in and within 100 feet of nearby streams streams whenever alternative options are deemed "not reasonably possible."
The Bush regulation replaced a 1983 rule that allowed dumping within 100 feet of a stream if it would not "adversely affect the water quantity or quality or other environmental resources of the stream."
The Environmental Protection Agency said last month it had legal power to block permits for mountaintop coal mines if the agency determined the mining would permanently harm water quality by polluting valley streams.
(Additional reporting by Tom Doggett; Editing by David Gregorio)
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18 Comments so far
Show AllGood.
Yeah but......One president allows such practice, another rescinds the mandate. What the heck is to prevent the next one from allowing it yet again?
Cap and trade legislation, if it passes, will eventually reduce the demand for carbon-intensive power sources such as coal. Personally I'd prefer some type of huge government mandate for renewable energy to convert away from coal and such much, much quicker. If we can produce a few million guns, tens of thousands of tanks and aircraft, thousands of warships in just a few years, (almost 70 years ago!), why can't we do the same or better with renewable energy? Then by the time the next President comes in, coal could mostly be a bad memory.
As one who works in the energy field I can attest to the fact that our energy delivery systems are horribly antiquated and intolerant of generation by solar or wind, or geothermal to large extent. We have basically the system invented by Edison and expanded but not really improved.
We will need much work to bring this up to snuff, and much money as well. Most folks look at roads and bridges but few look at power poles and such.
Good point...but of course that means more economic activity and GDP. Enough to make even conservative economists happy, although they'll surely be disappointed when the health problems and deaths from pollution will no longer add to the GDP. Oh well. Can't please everyone.
I understand your perspective. Does it seem like power transmision and distribution is so hostile to renewables and inefficient that it must have been deiberately designed that way?
As a civil engineer with an urbanist perspective, when I go out to outlying burbs, I am often taken aback at the deiberately-engineered inefficicies of the whole transportation infrastructure. Being entirely private car-dependent is bad enough, but the developers hand-in-hand with the planners, seem to go out of their way to make the car trip into or out of a subdivision or strip-development parking-lot as absolutely circuitous as possible.
But back to the topic, it is important to understand that MTR only represents a small percentatge of total US coal production. It could be banned outright without affecting the supply or price of coal in the least.
A communist revolution with a dictatorship in the name of the workers, right?
Have you found a leader yet?
PS You are right about the system and changes will come.
what is the purpose of this mocking of another participant in this forum?
Thank god. It is difficult to comprehend just how cruel and ignorant Bush et. al. are.
The enviornment definitely is O's forte. Except for his "Clean Coal" and allowing the Wolf slaughter ala Palin et.al. to continue in high gear. I guess the Grizzly is not getting much help either ( Salazar the rancher).
Did Bush choose not to enforce the "Clean Water Act"?
I can see a president not enforce laws via "policy changes" but a president cannot repeal laws.
The companies that poluted the streams should be prosecuted.
No, what actually happened was a couple of lobbyists for the coal industry got jobs in the EPA, changed a couple definitions of their Clean Water Act regulations, and quit the next day, and voila, coal companies were permitted to bury waterways!
http://www.grist.org/article
/Black-waters-no-more/
Thank you President Obama.
I work for MSHA, and before that with the Corps of Engineers where I worked on a MTR valley fill study.
An associate whose father works for the the OSM (Office of Surface Mining) in Morgantown (part of the Interior Department) has reported that this is largely for show. They are simply switching to the rules that held under the Clinton Administration. These rules never actually held up any valley fill permits since the agencies accept some pretty broad definitions of "no significant water quality impact". It was under Clinton, not Bush, that MTR really accelerated.
I think we've been Obama'd again!
"achieve energy independence"
Salazar's elitspeak hides his real goal: To help domestic energy godzillas like Peabody Coal, Inc. to achieve cartel control over energy supply. Instead, the USan people ought to demand LOCAL energy (and political/economic) independence through local small scale sustainable renewable energy production. The people prefer holistic approaches. Fix the environment, the economy, and the society in one swell foop.
Those who order the destruction of Mountains and desecration of the land are enemies of the people and should be treated as such.
Excellent! Now they need to reverse another 90 or so "midnight" regulations that Bush created just before he left office.
this is no way to treat coal companies who took the tops off mountains, and then compounded the horror by dumping them in rivers. Those companies must be forced, at gunpoint if need be, to dig the mountaintops out of the rivers, and put them back where they found them. sure, of course they will tell you they can't do it, but so what. they shoulda thought of that before they beheaded the mountains. they will also say they do not have the equipment. also no excuse. they will just have to do it. let's stop pussyfooting around with these guys, let them know we mean business.
From 'Cool Hand Luke':
Boss Paul: "That ditch is Boss Kean's ditch and I told him that dirt in it is your dirt. What's your dirt doing in his ditch?" Luke: "I don't know boss. ...