West Virginia
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More evidence that Sen. Byrd sees the writing on the wall for coal
Last Friday, the EPA took a significant step toward blocking a Clean Water Act permit for Arch Coal’s Spruce Mine, the largest proposed mountaintop-removal coal mine in West Virginia history. It’s a big deal — see Ken Ward Jr. for more on what it means and what comes next. I just wanted to highlight the […]
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What Obama could have said to the House Republican from West Virginia
In his extraordinary, unscripted dialogue with House Republicans last Friday, Obama had an interesting exchange with Rep. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia. It’s worth reprinting in full: CONGRESSWOMAN CAPITO: Thank you, Mr. President, for joining us here today. As you said in the State of the Union address on Wednesday, jobs and the economy […]
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As Copenhagen kicks off, a Good News roundup
The fashionable narrative about climate politics in American media is deflationist: nobody cares about climate any more because of some emails, the Senate clean energy bill is doomed because of the economy, and the Copenhagen climate talks will end in failure because of intractable differences between developed and developing nations. It gets old. Just for […]
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Blowing up our clean energy future
Last week, blasting began on Coal River Mountain in West Virginia. This is a part of the country where dynamite routinely goes off—turning the region’s historic mountain ranges into dust for the tiny coal seams that lie beneath their surface. But Coal River Mountain is special, or, rather, you can decide whether it becomes special. […]
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Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) [UPDATED]
Robert Byrd Sen. Robert Byrd hated the climate bill that passed the House in June (more on that below), but he seems a little more open to the Kerry-Boxer bill being considered in the Senate. As the Bluefield Daily Telegraph reported just after the bill was introduced: [Byrd] said he was encouraged by the greater […]
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Will EPA veto or regulate the plunder of Appalachia?
Big News: In a historic move, Lisa Jackson’s EPA threw down the gauntlet on mountaintop removal mining last Friday — after they had just compromised on another massively destructive mountaintop removal operation. Is this the beginning of the end of the plunder of Appalachia — or is the EPA moving sideways to regulate what its […]
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Should the Department of Justice investigate Big Coal bedlam?
UPDATE: Every American — including the Army Corps of Engineers — must watch this powerful new 20-minute film by Chad Stevens on the real costs and consequences of mountaintop removal mining: Leveling Appalachia: The Legacy of Mountaintop Removal Mining. Now, the good news: on behalf of their children’s future, coalfield residents and miners calmly came […]
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Bring seeds to the coalfields: Vote for this clean energy project
Want to take on Big Coal with a couple clicks on your keyboard? A fantastic new project, SEEDS — Sustainable Energy and Economic Diversification program — is taking root in the Coal River Valley of West Virginia, at ground zero in the mountaintop removal mining and coalfield uprising, and it needs your Grist-reading help: If […]
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NY Times nails Clean Water Act crimes and (lack of) punishment
Many readers of the New York Times probably dropped their jaws in amazement at the lead story on Sunday: Seven-year-old Ryan Massey, of Prenter, West Virginia, smiled back with capped teeth, the enamel devoured by toxic tap water. His brother sported scabs and rashes, courtesy of the heavy metals–including lead, nickel–in their bath water. If […]
