The Alliance for Appalachia

from: www.appvoices.org

There have been some remarkable happenings in the last two weeks in the fight against mountaintop removal.

For the first time EVER, both major Presidential candidates are publicly against mountaintop removal coal-mining. Last week at a town hall meeting in Orlando, Florida Senator McCain re-iterated what he told Appalachian Voices back in February. When asked if he supported a ban on mountaintop removal mining, the Senator bluntly said “I do.” McCain raised the ire of many of the more anti-environmental members of his caucus, including WV-02 Representative Shelly Moore Capito. McCain’s response “caught me off guard,” and said “such a stance could hurt McCain in West Virginia.”

Senator Barack Obama first indicated his opposition to mountaintop removal last year, when asked by Appalachian Voices. Obama said:

We have to find more environmentally sound ways of mining coal, than simply blowing the tops off mountains.

(The Green and Libertarian party candidates also oppose mountaintop removal.)

In another HUGE testamant to the success of the national netroots and the barrage of regional activism and citizen lobbying, the Clean Water Protection Act (HR 2169), just hit 150 co-sponsors last week. That is 150 people from 30 states, 1 territory, and the District of Columbia. This legislation is now supported by 142 Democrats and 8 Republicans from Maine to Hawaii to Florida to Washington state, and that list is growing every week. See if your Representative is a co-sponsor of the Clean Water Protection Act (HR 2169).

Also, for the first time to my knowledge, a court ruled that global warming bore a higher cost than the operation of a coal-fired power plant. Six activists who wrote the Prime Minister’s name down the side of a smokestack with the intention of shutting down a coal-fired power plant in the UK had the “lawful excuse” that they were protecting the planet from global warming.

Jurors accepted defence arguments that the six had a “lawful excuse” to damage property at Kingsnorth power station in Kent to prevent even greater damage caused by climate change. The defence of “lawful excuse” under the Criminal Damage Act 1971 allows damage to be caused to property to prevent even greater damage – such as breaking down the door of a burning house to tackle a fire.

Action for this week:
1) Ask your Representative to join 152 members of Congress and co-sponsor the Clean Water Protection Act (HR 2169), to protect America’s headwaters from mountaintop removal mining waste.

There, wasn’t that easy!? Y’all have a great Monday

Thats all for this week!

peace,
jdub

More info on McCain supporting an end to Mountaintop Removal Mining

In a discussion on the campaign trail Sept. 15, presidential candidate John McCain was asked whether he supports an end to mountaintop removal mining. He said “I do,” and while going on to praise the coal industry, McCain made clear that he would seek an end to mountaintop removal mining.  “I put this emphasis on clean coal technology because we are going to have to use coal…. Coal has got to be part of it, if we are going to achieve independence from foreign oil.”

Update: ThinkProgress, and the WV Gazette have more. – J-Dub

Update 2: Unofficial Transcript:

Question: Do you support eliminating mountaintop removal mining and practices like that?

McCain: You know, I do.

And I’m happy to tell you I’ve seen a dramatic improvement in the behavior of the coal companies. They are doing a much better job. Now its not perfect, but it certainly is dramatically improved from what it was some years ago. As you also know there’s a payment that the coal companies make for every ton of coal they take out and that money is given back to the community. That’s an important area of economic development in some of the lowest income parts of America. But I also want to get back to this clean coal technology for a second. My friends, she is right, we are sitting on the largest reserves of coal. And we’re gonna build new plants that generate energy my friends. We’re gonna build em. We’ve got to. Theres an increased demand for it.  And it seems to me its gonna be coal, which I believe will increase greenhouse gas emissions damatically, or its gonna be nuclear, or its going to be clean coal technology. I’m not free with your tax dollars, but I want to invest money – $2 billion a year – in development of clean coal technology. We should be able to do it. You know, you get so tired of hearing people say “you can’t do nuclear…you cant get clean coal technology…you can’t to this…you can’t do solar. We can. We can. We can do it. So, finally could I say, I put this emphasis on clean coal technology because we’re going to have to use coal. We don’t have any choice. There’s going to be a demand for energy my friends. Its going to be a demand for it. We’re gonna have to expand our electric grid. We’re going to have to do all those things as we see the growing demands for energy and coal has got to be part of it if we are going to achieve the independence from foreign oil. By the way, I’m sure you have seen in the last week or so., OPEC has announced that they are going to reduce the worlds oil supply. Why?! So they can squeeze more out of us! If there was ever an argument for us to become energy independent they just articulated again. And I won’t go in again and bother you with what I think the Russians are doing, because its very clear that they are using oil and natural gas as a weapon, and… I take back the word weapon…as a means of influencing other nations. And one of the things about Georgia as you know besides their aggression there, is the fact that there’s an oil pipeline that goes through Georgia into Turkey from Azerbaijan that is the only pipeline essentially that is not controlled by Russia. So, this is a big deal. Thank you for asking the question, because we’ve got to develop alternate energy, but clean coal has to be one of them.