Bush Administration Ignored Internal Dissent On Mountaintop Removal Mining

[hatrack]

WASHINGTON — "Internal government documents show that officials from a variety of agencies unsuccessfully criticized the Bush administration's effort to let coal miners continue the practice of "mountaintop removal" mining — the leveling of mountain peaks to extract coal — in Appalachia. At issue is a draft environmental impact statement analyzing the effects of the widely practiced technique on streams, wildlife and forests and proposing three approaches for regulation.

Although the administration said all three approaches would improve environmental protections, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said the administration's alternatives to regulate mountaintop removal mining "cannot be interpreted as ensuring any improved environmental protection," according to a document obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.

The agency had advocated that one alternative would minimize the impact on streams, fish and wildlife, according to the document, which was released along with others by Trial Lawyers for Public Justice, a Washington-based public-interest law firm that submitted the FOIA request.

EDIT

Cindy Tibbott, a Fish and Wildlife Service specialist in Pennsylvania, warned that the public would wonder why "all we've proposed is alternative locations to house the rubber stamp that issues the permits." The documents included a primer for officials responding to possible "hostile" questions from reporters. Included was a possible question about whether Deputy Interior Secretary J. Steven Griles was involved in developing the environmental impact statement. Griles, a former energy lobbyist, has been accused by environmental groups and Democrats in Congress of conflict of interest for seeking outcomes that benefit his former clients."

EDIT

LA Times Link - free registration required

[Buzz Clik]

1. This practice is unthinkable.

An amazing demonstration of prostitution on Bush's part. Disgusting.

[yellowcanine]

2. If Gawd-dah didn't want us to remove those mountain tops

she wouldn't have put all of that coal under them, dontcha know?
Another faith-based program brought to you by the Bush maladministration.

[treepig]

3. stopping the removal of these mountaintops is desperately needed

or else the earth might stop rotating (sooner than it otherwise would).

for some reason, the rotation of the earth has been slowing - once it stops for good, the ramification will be profound - how would you like to live on the "dark side of the earth?" or in the blistering heat of the perpetually sunlit side?

anyhow, thank god for the good folks in the government, who under the foresight of the Kennedy/Johnson administration, began the following programs:

Meanwhile, the Bureau of Reclamation and its foreign compatriots are doing their part to keep the earth spinning. The 88 reservoirs built worldwide over the last 40 years have apparently lessened the slowing of the earth's rotation caused by the tidal drag of the moon by 0.2 millionths of a second a day. A total of 2.4 cubic miles of water is now stored in mid-latitude reservoirs, decreasing the amount of water stored near the equator, and lessening the pull of the moon, reports the New York Times.

see http://www.hcn.org/servlets/hcn.PrintableArticle?article_id=1790

but now, moval of mountain-tops to lower elevations are counteracting the beneficial effects of increased storage of water at high elevations. gawd, how short-sighted can this admistration be???

[treepig]

4. another problem with the whole coal extraction scheme

brought up by a different poster in the rapidly sinking thread on this topic over in LBN, is the fact that buring coal releases orders of magnitude more radioactivity into the environment (than commercial nuclear power generation do, for example) - check out this article:

http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html

"Based on the predicted combustion of 2516 million tons of coal in the United States and 12,580 million tons worldwide during the year 2040, cumulative releases for the 100 years of coal combustion following 1937 are predicted to be:

U.S. release (from combustion of 111,716 million tons):
Uranium: 145,230 tons (containing 1031 tons of uranium-235)

Thorium: 357,491 tons

Worldwide release (from combustion of 637,409 million tons):

Uranium: 828,632 tons (containing 5883 tons of uranium-235)

Thorium: 2,039,709 tons "

for comparison purposes, the amount of uranium released in iraq through weapons use that everyone's screaming about is 320 tons - or about 0.04% that's been released through coal burning in the USA - where's the outrage?