After the horrors of the last few decades, i guess we are all eager to celebrate any crumbs tossed our way.But EPA's intervention in the permitting of Appalachian coal mining is a dubious victory for environmentalism. The present action is as much a result of litigation in the 4th District referring back to 2007 as it is any new enlightened environmentalism at the EPA.
i was especially sobered by the agency's latest statement:
"'The Environmental Protection Agency is not halting, holding or placing a moratorium on any of the mining permit applications,' EPA Press Secretary Adora Andy said in the statement. 'Plain and simple.' "Regarding the backlogged cases Andy said, "We fully anticipate that the bulk of these pending permit applications will not raise environmental concerns. In cases where a permit does raise environmental concerns, we will work expeditiously with the Army Corps of Engineers to determine how these concerns can be addressed.'" (1)
Hardly a celebratory perspective. A cynic might even propose that the EPA's intervention at this point is actually an effort to promote the president's "clean coal" goals by expediting the backlog of permits confronting the courts and Corps.
Second, i am afraid that the counter force for saving jobs---an oversimplification that colors much of the administration's thinking---will play. The NMA is already banking on this:
"...Carol Raulston, spokeswoman for the National Mining Association, said the move jeopardizes thousands of jobs."'EPA has delayed any further permitting for coal mining operations out of the Huntington and Louisville corps of engineers offices,' she said. 'This is very troubling, as there are as many as 65,000 mining jobs that are put at risk by this action because almost all mining operations in that area require a 404 permit in order to operate.'" (2)
Third, i would like to suggest that instead of strumming kumbayas and thanking our elected officials for every instance of tokenism, tentativism, symbolism, illusion, and half-measure (at best), we increase the pressure of our demands. While i continue to characterize these simulacra of humanity as devils and dopes, they are not without some feral guile (in fact, it is requisite to their wretched profession). When we show gratitude for their limited responses to the popular will, we run the danger of communicating a notion that what they are offering is enough, postponing the need to deal with fundamentals.
As they are with eNG drilling in our area, government and industry are focused only on mitigation in coal mining, not on energy essentials. That is not enough, and that is what we should be communicating to them. Mountaintop removal (surface mining generally) can be made safe and responsible no more than eNG drilling. It should not be regulated, but stopped. It should have been stopped, if not before, in 1972, when 300m gallons of coal sludge buried 125 poor souls in Buffalo Creek.
The main reason for MT removal is simple profit from labor savings: surface mining enhanced by explosives and heavy equipment is 2 1/2 times more "efficient" than conventional mining.
These considerations are especially relevant at the moment when The Elected One is hell-bent (to borrow Topolanek's vernacular) on transferring unprecedented amounts of the people's wealth and the earth's resources to his corporate masters.
1.
http://www.greenbiz.com/news/2009/03/25/epa-warns-army-corps-engineers2.
http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2009/03/24/24greenwire-epa-halts-mountaintop-permitting-will-review-w-10274.html
