EPA Says 42 of 48 Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining Permits “Environmentally Responsible”

kayfordblastEver hear about “hope” and “change?”

Remember we had this guy that ran on that rhetoric last year and got elected to the presidency.

As residents of West Virginia and Kentucky are digging themselves out of a dirty muck from heavy floods exacerbated by mountaintop removal and the coal industry blows up Appalachia’s mountains with 3 million tons of explosives a day, Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has said 42 out of 48 permits (87.5 percent, to be exact) to blow the tops off of Appalachian mountains “environmentally responsible.”

Does the picture above look “environmentally responsible?”  Does it look like “hope” or “change?”

I guess Appalachia is a “hope” and “change” free zone.  It’s definitely the national sacrifice zone for our energy addiction.

Read Jeff Biggers’ blog for the longer story.

If you want to make some change consider joining the growning grassroots resistance to mountaintop removal and big coal.  This weekend, Mountain Justice Summer kicks off in southern West Virginia.  From there Climate Ground Zero begins their summer long “Mountain Defenders” camp. Come for a week, get trained up and go be a wrench in the gears of Big Coal.

4 Responses to “EPA Says 42 of 48 Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining Permits “Environmentally Responsible””


  1. 1 riseup4wv May 18th, 2009 at 9:13 am

    There was a post on this very blog back in the fall – “Why I’m Voting for Obama.” The writer opined that we should elect him and then try to change his mind on some things. I thought then that was a naive way to go. I still think so! Seems to be a bit of “buyer’s remorse” out there today.

  2. 2 Alexander M. Tinker May 18th, 2009 at 12:21 pm

    Devastatingly disappointing, Mr. Obama and Ms. Jackson.

  3. 3 Dump Coal at the White House May 19th, 2009 at 10:22 pm

    This is appalling. It’s time for somebody to dump a big load of Appalachian coal in front of the White House, then paint it green.

  4. 4 Joel Ford May 20th, 2009 at 8:54 pm

    It’s electricity we’re stuck on. Coal is just a primary way of getting it. We made the mistake of relying on the plants, and now what? Just shut them down while we reconfigure our energy infrastructure?
    Quick raise of hands – who is willing to go without electricity for a year or more?
    It’s so ironic to me that so many people complain about coal mining on the internet, made possible by electricity generated by coal plants.

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About


Scott Parkin is a Senior Campaigner with Rainforest Action Network and organizes with Rising Tide North America. He has worked on a variety of campaigns around climate change, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, mountaintop removal, labor issues and anti-corporate globalization. Originally from Texas, he now lives in San Francisco.

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