The coal industry has been engaged in a practice for the past couple of years called mountaintop removal, where they'll blow off the tops of the mountains and dump the waste into the valleys and streams of West Virginia and Kentucky. In this weekend's Washington Post, Robert Kennedy Jr. and Joe Lovett, who are two environmental attorneys, reported that the Bush Administration is going to change rules under Clean Water Act to make this practice legal. It has been up until now illegal but unenforced. I'm wondering why the administration is going to do that?

Ari Fleischer: Russell, you have a very good habit of asking questions that the agencies know a lot more about. I have not heard about any of this. Again, I refer you to the agencies that have jurisdictions over these type of regulations.

Mokhiber: Second question. . .if I could. . .

Fleischer: Thank you. (News conference ends).

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-Thanks to Russell Mokhiber

White House reporter Russell Mokhiber is the editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime Reporter - www.corporatecrimereporter.com. He co-authors the weekly Focus on the Corporation column with Robert Weissman which Common Dreams publishes. He can be reached at: russell@nationalpress.com