45 halts research on health effects of mountaintop removal coal mining

[Tanuki]

http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/347374-trump-administration-halts-research-on-mountaintop-removal-coal?amp
..."The Interior Department's Office of Surface Mining (OSM) last year, under then-President Obama, had commissioned the research into the possible connections between certain health risks and living near current or former surface mining sites in Appalachia. The OSM committed $1 million to the two-year effort after West Virginia officials requested it in 2015.

But the agency sent a letter Friday to the National Academy of Sciences, which it had contracted to do the independent review, asking it to stop its work immediately.

Interior defended the pause as a necessary step toward ensuring responsible use of taxpayer money.
.....

Michael Hendryx, an Indiana University health science professor, told House lawmakers in 2015 that his studies have linked mountaintop removal to increased lung cancer, heart and kidney disease, and other ailments.
......
Bill Price, senior Appalachia organizer at the Sierra Club, called the administration's decision to halt the National Academy study "infuriating." "Trump has once again shown the people of Appalachia that we mean nothing to him," he said in a statement.
.... (more)

[lapfog_1]

1. I'm sad for Ellie May's "critters"

and I'm sad that I will never see an unspoiled Appalachia.

But then I'm more sad (as a former scuba diving instructor) that I will never see an unspoiled Great Barrier Reef.

And I'm sad that our children's children's children... probably for 20 more generations... will not get to see these things either.

But I'm not really sad for the people of Appalachia that voted for this asshole.