NC hearing on Appalachian Mountain Preservation Act
Apr 22nd, 2009 by admin
from www.kftc.org
More action in North Carolina today as a committee of the state legislature heard testimony on the Appalachian Mountain Preservation Act — legislation that would prevent North Carolina utilities from buying coal that had been extracted by mountaintop removal.
There was a short hearing of scheduled testimony before the NC House Environment and Natural Resources Committee, chaired by Rep. Lucy Allen. Lora Smith was there and reports:
“On the opponents side representatives from Progress Energy and Duke Power speculated on what the bill would do to the North Carolina economy warning that if passed, no new businesses would ever, ever come to the state again. On the proponents side, Ann League of Tennessee’s Save Our Cumberland Mountains (SOCM) and Matt Wasson of Appalachian Voices presented on the environmental and human costs of mountaintop removal mined coal and presented data on how little switching to entirely deep mined coal would cost North Carolina utilities in lieu of buying half of their coal from Mountaintop Removal operations.”
There was a big showing of coal officials from Kentucky, West Virginia and Tennessee — including Kentucky Coal Association President Bill Caylor — there apparently expecting to testify, even though they were not invited or on the schedule. Lora reports that Rep. Allen held her ground and didn’t allow the committee to be bullied by these “special” visitors.
“However, the big coal lobbyists did get in a few comments at the end with some pretty ridiculous and outright false statements — as in telling the committee that underground mines created valley fills as large as those created by mountaintop removal.”
Overall the hearing went well, though there was no vote in the committee today.
UPDATE: April 22 — The (Raleigh) News & Observer reports this morning that the Preservation Act’s sponsor, Rep. Pricey Harrison, has withdrawn this bill. She said she’d work on a resolution to encourage Congress to restrict or ban the mining practice. Read the newspaper’s brief report here.
