GOP moves to undo Obama coal rules protecting streams
Source: Associated Press
MONDAY, JAN 30, 2017 04:00 PM EST
WASHINGTON (AP) Congressional Republicans are moving swiftly to repeal Obama administration regulations aimed at better protecting streams from coal mining debris.
Coal country lawmakers unveiled legislation Monday to block the rules, which they say would kill jobs in the coal industry, which is reeling from competition from cleaner-burning natural gas.
The legislation unveiled Monday would overturn December regulations through a process that permits Congress to revoke recently-issued rules in a manner that is immune to filibusters by Senate Democrats. The repeal measure is set for a House vote Wednesday and a Senate vote shortly thereafter.
The Stream Protection Rule is the latest in a series of overreaching and misguided Obama-era regulations that have targeted Americas coal industry, said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va. If this rule were allowed to stay in place, it would add to the economic devastation for people in coal communities.
Read more: http://www.salon.com/2017/01/30/gop-moves-to-undo-obama-coal-rules-protecting-streams/
kimbutgar
(21,188 posts)manicraven
(901 posts)I guess they don't care about clean water and air or about the planet either.
kimbutgar
(21,188 posts)Of those poor red state voters. They can't get away with it in the blue states though.
riversedge
(70,299 posts)small dairy farmers (my dad fought it for years but had to get a different job-just could not compete with the big mega farmers anymore).
manicraven
(901 posts)'Cause you overwhelmingly voted for tRump and the GOP!
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)Nothing about Democracy requires that people will make correct or wise choices.
Poison 'em and be done.
mobeau69
(11,156 posts)byronius
(7,401 posts)Well, executive order, maybe.
Botany
(70,581 posts)For the first time in decades we saw a reduction in Acid Mine Drainage under Obama
and now this?
BTW this will not bring back one coal job. The power plants have all switched from coal
to gas ..... cheaper, cleaner, and much easier to use.
reggaehead
(269 posts)To strip mine
Botany
(70,581 posts)The power companies have spent billions in switching from coal to gas and they are not
going back. Trump also told the people of the W.V., PA, and OH that the steel jobs are coming
back too which was a lie.
* including Mt. Top Removal.
HopeAgain
(4,407 posts)Coal is simply no longer as feasable source of energy. what is going to happen when the miners find out their jobs still aren't coming back and their water is polluted?
Probably still luv em sum Trump!
sarcasmo
(23,968 posts)yardwork
(61,703 posts)Scalded Nun
(1,239 posts)That sludge in the water will not only help it go down better, it will cure constipation as well.
You can't cure stupid, but this way we might reduce it through attrition.
Phoenix61
(17,019 posts)From hikers and campers who prefer not to go slogging through polluted streams, better kiss them goodbye. Oh yeah, and those fish frys y'all like to have at church and the local VFW, guess you can buy your fish at the grocery store like the rest of us. Short sited dumbasses.
Botany
(70,581 posts).... brook trout in those streams and in many states they stock those
streams & rivers w/trout and muskies too. But still they can go and fish
for bass in ponds and then go and get their heavy metals by catching
and then eating catfish from the rivers (bottom feeders).
But as the local folks' worlds go to shit they will blame liberals for their lot in
life because that is what the coal bosses, their pastor, Fox News, the
NRA and local politicans tell them and they still slurp that shit right up.
Really pretty country but the people there have been lied to and fucked with
for generations and getting them to understand things in a different way is
a really hard thing to do.
CBHagman
(16,987 posts)Which is what happened to an alarmingly large segment of the West Virginia population after the Elk River spill. And the last I heard, they aren't ready for another such disaster.
[url]http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/report-two-years-after-elk-river-chemical-spill-west-virginia-american-water-wvaw-unprepared-to-deal-with-another-major-crisis-300201022.html[/url]
As the second anniversary nears of the January 9, 2014 chemical spill that left more than 300,000 Charleston area residents without water for more than a week, privately owned West Virginia American Water (WVAW) has not taken the necessary steps to prepare for a future crisis, hold down rates, avoid major service disruptions, and invest in ailing infrastructure, according to a major new report from Boston Action Research (BAR), a project of the Civil Society Institute (CSI).
[url]http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/10/26/499307717/settlement-deal-reached-in-2014-west-virginia-chemical-spill[/url]
West Virginia residents have settled part of a civil lawsuit over a chemical spill that contaminated drinking water for thousands of people in 2014, according to The Associated Press.
On Wednesday, court officials told the news service that lawyers representing residents and businesses in and around Charleston, W.Va., had reached a settlement with Eastman Chemical Co. over its involvement in the January 2014 spill of a chemical used for cleaning coal. Terms of the settlement must be approved by a judge.
The chemical, called methylcyclohexane methanol, or crude MCHM, caused nausea, vomiting and eye irritations that led to infections after it entered the water supply after it entered the water supply. The spill prompted the governor to declare a state of emergency for nine counties, and water was cut off to about 300,000 people for days.
Cryptoad
(8,254 posts)no matter how much they mess up the streams...... LNG is too cheap, and cleaner,,,, and we are drowning in it! Gone the way of the buggy whip makers!
weissmam
(905 posts)They_Live
(3,240 posts)when you can kill people as well.
Fuck.
weissmam
(905 posts)Coal is dead and nothing the GOP can do will bring it back to life
Blue Idaho
(5,057 posts)It's dead as a doornail. Coal accounts for .12% of the workforce - fewer than 80,000 miners mine coal. It's nothing.