West Virginia Blue
The Best Blogging Community in West Virginia Democratic politics, progressive policies, the good life and free living in Wild, Wonderful West Virginia.
Some don't like me re-branding the estate tax as the Paris Hilton Tax. [The DHinMI parallel--"I didn't' read it but I will respond"] I did not like Frank Lutz and Company re-branding it as the Death Tax. Now we have another re-branding. Ken Ward points this out in the Saturday WaPo article [sorry, blond_moment, visited the relatives for Easter, hard to boycott]. I was asked about this topic, and if the word smiths are in action, it must mean that the majority doesn't like the idea of removing mountains.
But I was disappointed that David fell into the same trap as The Associated Press (both its local bureau here in Charleston and folks in Washington and elsewhere in AP), in adopting the industry’s term “mountaintop mining,” which is a phrase made up by the coal industry (and some friends in regulatory agencies) to avoid the more nasty-sounding “mountaintop removal.” This term “mountaintop mining,” is not mentioned in the federal strip mining law or its regulations. It’s unfortunate that it’s catching on with the media.
Mountain. Top. Removal.
Anybody up for checking tags where it may count? It is not what you say, it is what they hear.
A cap on losses, but not a share of profits? Sorry, but that looks like more corporate welfare. Another case of "what's yours is mine and what's mine is mine, too."
Bank of America has received pressure in a national campaign by the RainForest Action Network due to its investment in coal-fired electric plants and coal companies to practice mountaintop removal.
Fascinating. After a feeble statement against mountain top removal (not even as strong as the one Obama made years ago), McCain comes out strongly in favor of nuclear and the non-existent clean coal technology.
I'm also confused... are coal companies doing much better today than the used to? Perhaps in making profits they are. When it comes to protecting the environment... not so much.
John McCain still doesn't say where he's going to store all that new nuclear power plan waste he wants to create. Tell him its not welcome in West Virginia.
Ever listen to Michael Feldman's Whad'Ya Know on the radio on Saturdays? My significant other is a fan; maybe it's the fact that one brother went to college in Wisconsin. The show on 28JUN was from the Charleston Civic Center, site of the the Democratic State Convention.
To participate in the call-in contest with an audience member, you have to answer a question. Then there is a five question fact game with local food specialties as the prize. One question was What is the number of chicken per capita in West Virginia, 25, 35, or 50? The correct answer is the highest number. This is due to the industry in the Moorefield area as we should all know, right? Even though my degree is in math, I will leave it to the reader to figure out many actual chicken feathers that is and how much chicken scratch that is for the boss.
Wait, there really is a point here. Do any of you watch Bill Moyers Journal - Expose on Friday nights on PBS? On Friday the day before the radio show the investigation was about OSHA and started at The Charlotte Observer.
Injury rates reported at America's poultry plants have dropped dramatically in recent years, and so have workplace safety inspections. Are regulators rewarding companies for inaccurate reporting of injuries? BILL MOYERS JOURNAL and EXPOSÉ: AMERICA'S INVESTIGATIVE REPORTS go inside America's poultry industry, which employs almost a quarter million workers nationwide, to show the reality of working conditions and to investigate how official statistics showing a drop in workplace injuries may have been the result of deceptive reporting.
Shocked, I am shocked, that there is gambling is this establishment.
Cliff notes version, if you remove the repetitive injury check box on the reporting form industry is so much safer. If workers are picked up from the ER by the employer they don't miss any days of work and the company looks like it has lots of accident free days. Surprise, surprise.
Mitch McConnell's wife wanted Justice Scalia'a son as her lawyer. The Senate would have nothing to do with this. Like one of many sharp sticks in the eye, (Bolton at the UN), he won a recess appointment over the Christmas break of 2001. Remember what John J. Sweeney had to say?
It is a slap in the face of American workers for President Bush to recess appoint Eugene Scalia, an outspoken opponent of ergonomics and other worker protection initiatives, to be the Solicitor of Labor.
This is an appointment that by all standard rules should not have happened. Eugene Scalia's nomination faced intense and broad opposition in the United States Senate and from an array of worker advocates because of his track record of extreme and relentless opposition to ergonomics protections and other worker protection initiatives. In these situations, people with grace withdraw their nominations, and Administrations with intentions to work in a bi-partisan fashion withdraw them in favor of more mainstream candidates.
Remember when mercury suddenly was not longer hazardous and those pesky hot spots just went away back in 2005?
To justify the new approach, the administration needed to reverse a decision by the Clinton administration to list mercury as a hazardous air pollutant. That allowed for greater flexibility in designing emission controls and made possible a trading system to mesh with the EPA rule issued last week to control emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, said Scott Segal, a spokesman for the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, which represents a number of coal-fired utilities.
Bush as such problems with long sentences so let's make the sentences shorter by taking out a few words.
Remember when MTR rubble became simply fill, starting back in 2001 with the easing of regulations?
the Clinton administration made it more difficult for coal companies to receive new permits to mine. But the Bush administration and congressional Republicans have begun examining ways to ease restrictions to boost coal production.
Arsenic in water was another. After delaying for more study (sound familiar to any polar bears out there?), the acceptable levels were actually set below what Clinton had proposed by one half. The years of delay increased bladder cancers in some communities. The style of governing at that point was anything Clinton did we will do the opposite, but I digress.
The approach of having the foxes guard the hen house, like MSHA, had our senior senator fired up after Sago. Several hearings have featured EP resident Davit McAteer, MSHA director under Clinton. It was never lunch in his brown paper bag, but safety equipment that the Republicans at the hearing said did not yet exist.
As Molly Ivans in Shrub indicated, Bush's approach to regulation was whatever is good for bidness. I tried to get many at my office to read this in the fall of 2000. By 2004 they were apoligizing for not taking me up on the library offer.
While the rest of the country clamored about drunk-driving charges and silly verbal inconsistencies, Ivins and Dubose released a lean book packed with a fantastic political history that would -- and ultimately did -- become political future. They lambasted Bush's shady business dealings, dismantling of environmental standards and campaign-finance reform, gutting of regulatory agencies, and economic policies that took Texas from a massive surplus to a massive deficit.
To all those conventions delegates that sat on their hands during Jay's and/or Joes' speech at the party convention, I ask, do you think McCain, following Bush's policies, will look out for your? PUMA anyone?
I have received action alerts from most all the activist groups of which I am a member concerning the upcoming vote in the US Senate on the Climate-change Bill.Then,this morning's New York Post had some op-eds on the matter and I posted a comment to an editorial:
It is editorials and comments such as have preceded this one that cause the populace to regard what they read in the press with lots of skepticism,and what they see from their elected representatives and candidates with more than a little cynicism.If the Senate were concerned with climate change,air pollution,and the welfare of the people of the world,they would never have enacted the corn-ethanol mandates.The agri-business corporations who have benifitted from this boondoggle so far,should look to the increases in food costs with shame.Another column in this paper today says $4.00 should be the floor price for gasoline,at least until we each have a plug-in hybrid.If $4.00 gas would increase the availability and usage of mass transit then I'm for it,but the CO2 produced by the number of coal-fired power plants required for each of us to drive a plug-in hybrid would only cascade the release of CO2 AND METHANE from the tundra and the oceans.Being a citizen of one of the States in Appalachia which provides the cheap Mountaintop-Removal coal and electricity,with its attendant air,soil,and water pollution,I would plead with my brothers in the Enlightened Northeast to go to Google Earth and check out the devastation of my home,which is making the electricity available.
For over thirty years we have bought into the myth that an energy policy would be too expensive and ploitically impossible til after the next election.Well,there will always be the next election,but there might not always be the gluttonous lifestyle to which we have become accustomed.Yes,Pogo,the enemy is US.
A realistic energy policy and a workable emmissions policy are each long overdue.The political will to do either is maybe coming around,what with the $4.00 a gallon gas and the focus of the world's vision on the food riots in the less-well-off parts of the world,which is,coincidentally,where the terrorists are recruited from.If we had only continued on the path the dictators of OPEC had set us on 35 years ago we would be less dependent on them now.But the price of crude went back down to $10.00 a barrel,Detoit told us we deserved gas-guzzlers,and the fuel-efficiency standards started lagging behind the off-the-shelf technologies that could have saved us billions at the pump.The twin mantras of carbon-sequestration and opening up ANWR are distractions that are intended to kick the can 8 months down the road.We are told that to do something would harm our economy.Anyone who believes W's policies on the War,energy,global-warming,the middle-class,good-paying jobs,healthcare,AND THE ECONOMY have not hurt our economy,will not be swayed by only logic and reason.
Last week, new Bushie rules were approved to authorize using streams, wetlands and waterways as waste dump sites as long as man-made streams are "created" to replace the streams killed by the waste. This is a faith-based rule: Even the government admits there is no evidence that people have the godly powers to create functional ecological stream systems. That faith is based on the greed of appeasing special corporate interests that don't want to spend money on responsible waste disposal methods.
This rule is not limited to mining waste, but the destruction of streams and watersheds is prevalent in Appalachia. MTR mining has already destroyed 1,208 miles of streams in just 10 years, but greedy profiteers have since added another 535 miles.
I received this from my friend Marley in Harrisonburg. If you want to help, write me at beth dot wellington at gmail dot com. These are my buddieswho did the "Santa Brings Coal to BankAmerica" street theater in Charlottesville, which I wrote about earlier.
Hey friends
Im emailing you because I know you are smart, passionate, kick-ass people that want to help our land and our people from eco-destruction. Every day the fertilizer bombs are biting chunks out of the life, history, f..ing geology of Appalachia. The f...ers take the spirit out of it, process it till it's toxic goo, stuff it in their pockets and lie through their teeth all the way to the bank.
but we are the root force, we are outraged, and we are organizing. I email you because all that was unnecessary, because u know it already. want I want to ask is for your help in stopping it. Mountain Justice Spring Break. March 1-9 in Southwest va (near abingdon), March 22-30th in SOuthern Ohio, Meigs Co. Im helping to organize the SW. Va week, but our collective needs help.
(See also Devilstower diary on the potential of solar. I hope West Virginia isn't so invested in coal that it misses the chance for investing in the future. - promoted by Carnacki)
Activists with Blue Ridge Earth First! (BREF) gathered at noon today at the Bank of America branch on the downtown mall in Charlottesville to tell bank management "Divest from Coal. Invest in Clean Energy." As carolers sang coal-themed versions of Christmas classics such as I'm Having Nightmares of a Coal Christmas to the tune of I'm Dreaming of A White Christmas, Santa delivered a sack of coal to the bank, checking off the naughtiest corporation on his list.
Santa later disclosed "It's Bank of America's bad habit of funding climate change and destructive coal mining that earned them their lump of coal today."
BREF! encouraged citizens to close their accounts in protest until Bank of America stops investing billions of dollars in companies such as Massey Energy, Arch Coal, and Alpha Natural Resources which practice mountaintop removal. This form of coal mining demolishes mountains for their coal and then dumps the refuse in stream beds, polluting the water. Additionally, coal-fired electric plants, despite claims of "clean" coal, emit green house gasses which contribute to climate change. Meanwhile the bank has made headlines for pledges to support environmentally sustainable business and address global climate change.
After being asked to leave by bank management the carolers reassembled in front of the main entrance to continue caroling while other Earth First! volunteers distributed fliers to passersby. After about thirty minutes, 'Global Warming Crime Scene' tape was wrapped around the entrance and the protesters dispersed.
BREF!'s Charlottesville street theater came on the heel of international climate talks in Bali. Meanwhile the U.S. Senate has stripped H.R. 6 of clean energy investments funded by elimination of tax breaks for fossil fuels, after a threatened Republican filibuster. And here in Virginia, criticism mounts regarding Dominion's proposed coal-fired plant, to receive a hearing before the State Corporation Commission January 8. BREF! distributed information, asking the public to attend this hearing and to support resolutions to the Virginia General Assembly opposing the plant. One such local government resolution is currently before Charlottesville's City Council, with Blacksburg having already passed its own resolution December 11 and others pending in Alexandria and Arlington County.
Earth First!'s holiday festivities are part of a campaign organized nationally by Rainforest Action Network, Mountain Justice and a coalition of grassroots organizations. Tuesday's caroling follows a similar event on Saturday at Bank of America's Barracks Rd. Branch, a November 30 UVA student die-in at the bank's University Avenue location and an August 31 banner drop at Virginia Tech in conjunction with BREF! demonstrations in Blacksburg and Harrisonburg.
On 2002, with the Court ruling on the side of citizens regarding the illeggality of the havoc mtr was wreaking, the Bush Army Corps of engineers wrote a little rule reclassifying crumpled mountains dumped in streams as "fill" not waste. Then, as the Clean Water Protection Act (h.r.02169) http://thomas.loc.go... was gaining co-sponsors (now at 107) the Bushies came up with a proposed new rule (Docket RIN 1029-AC04) to eliminate stream buffer zones. And of course, the NMA is on the job urging you to support this, and thus MTR. So, I hope y'all will use their info to do just the opposite and comment to the Office of Surface Mining before November 23! The online comment form is here:
And while you'e protecting clean water, if you have already written in support of h.r. 2169, consider supporting the Clean Water Authority Restoration Act, h.r. 2421 http://thomas.loc.go... See the factsheet at: http://www.cleanwate...
The new co-sponsors for h.r. 2169 added last month are below the fold, followed by my rewriting of NMA's suggested letter, followed by the NMH action alert in full.
Depending on how long the Alberto Gonzales no-confidence takes today, the Senate may take up the Energy Bill as early as this evening. That means there's no time to waste to make our voices heard on the Liquid Coal legislation.
The massive subsidies for coal were defeated in committee. Unfortunately, they could easily get snuck back in again as an amendment before the final vote.
Call your Senator today! Tell them to vote against Liquid Coal if it comes up again as an amendment. For those of us in West Virginia, call Sen. Byrd and Sen. Rockefeller. Here are their numbers:
Sen. Jay Rockefeller - 202-224-6472
Sen. Robert Byrd - 202-224-3954
The Coal to Liquid Fuel bill is a bad piece of legislation. It will increase, not decrease carbon emissions. It will increase, not decrease destruction Mountain Top Removal coal mining. It will increase, not decrease the transfer of wealth to corporate energy owners. It is bad energy policy, bad social policy, and bad environmental policy.
This is a critical time for action. Your voice can make a difference.
Today dozens of cyclists paid a surprise visit to Bank of America to protest their financial backing of coal companies as a part of the International Day of Action Against Climate Change and G8. After tying up downtown traffic, the 30-strong bike ride descended on the downtown Asheville headquarters of Bank of America. Once there, a number of people dumped coal in front of the main entrance, while another person spontaneously sacrificed their bike lock and locked the front doors shut.
[snip]
Bank of America plays a major role in perpetuating climate change by its massive investments in the coal industry. Pound for pound, burning coal releases more C02 emissions then any other fossil fuel. Bank of America has facilitated nearly $1 billion in loans to Massey Energy and Arch Coal, two of the largest companies involved in the environmentally devastating process of mountaintop removal coal mining. Mountaintop removal mining has already reduced 500 square miles of mountains to rubble and buried over 1,200 miles of streams in Southern Appalachia.
Bank of America has also made loans and facilitated stock offerings for Peabody Energy to the tune of several billion dollars. Peabody is infamous for its human rights violations against Native Americans. Since 1975, over 14,000 indigenous people, mostly Dine’, have been forcibly relocated off of their ancestral lands to make way for Peabody’s Black Mesa strip mine in northeastern Arizona. This strip mine, the largest in the US, has devastated thousands of acres of indigenous land and drained local aquifers that are essential for sustaining life in this desert climate. In addition to these abuses, Peabody Energy, along with a number of other companies funded by Bank of America, are pursuing the construction of a new wave of dirty coal plants.
(Bumped... this story is just as apt today as it was six-plus months ago. - promoted by Clem Guttata)
Erik Reece, Credit: The Courier-Journal.com
I agree with Erik Reece of Lexington, KY. It's time for a 'new deal' for Appalachia(h/t to va dare for the link):
A form of strip mining called mountaintop removal has ripped apart all of the ridgelines that surround this forest, leaving miles of lifeless gray plateaus, lunar wastelands. Mountaintop removal entails the blasting of entire summits to rubble in an effort to reach, as quickly and inexpensively as possible, thin seams of bituminous coal. Trees, topsoil and sandstone are dumped into the valleys below. More than 1,000 miles of streams have been buried in this way, and an Environmental Protection Agency study found that 95 percent of headwater streams near mines have been contaminated by heavy metals leeching from the sites.
When it comes to mountaintop removal, a certain fatalism seems to take hold in Appalachia -- the coal companies are too powerful, some politicians are corrupt, the regulators won't regulate and the news media don't care. But we cannot give up on rehabilitating Appalachia.
Erik Reece continues outlining not only the problems we face, but a hopeful future for new solutions as well.
Appalachia's land is dying. Its fractured communities show the typical symptoms of hopelessness, including OxyContin abuse rates higher than anywhere in the country. Meanwhile, 22 states power houses and businesses with Kentucky coal. The people of central and southern Appalachia have relinquished much of their natural wealth to the rest of the country and have received next to nothing in return.
To right these wrongs, first we need federal legislation that will halt the decapitation of mountains and bring accountability to an industry that is out of control. Then we need a New Deal for Appalachia that would expand the Appalachian Regional Reforestation Initiative, or create a similar program, to finally return some of the region's lost wealth in the form of jobs and trees, rebuilt topsoil and resuscitated communities.
Financing should come from a carbon tax on Appalachian coal bought and burned by utility companies across the country -- a tax that would also discourage the wasteful emissions of greenhouse gases. Such a project would educate and employ an entire generation of foresters and forest managers, who would be followed by locally owned wood-product industries and craftsmen like Patrick Angel's brother Mike, who makes much sought-after hardwood chairs just like ones his grandfather fashioned.
We know that our species, and most other species, will survive only in a future that burns no coal or oil. The question now is whether we have the nerve to get there before the world's oldest mountains are gone.
I couldn't agree more. Let's start investing financial resources in sustainable development. The extraction economy has been a disaster for this region--liquid coal is not the answer. Sustainable energy solutions are sustainable economic solutions.
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