Miracle! The EPA Decides to Protect the Environment

During the last seconds of the George W. Bush presidency, the Bushie Environmental Non-Protection Agency attempted to make permanent its rule that mountaintop coal mining in Appalachia could go forward unabated and that coal companies could bury adjacent streams with the "waste" removed from the mountaintops.

The Obama EPA just reversed that policy, putting on hold any new permits while impacts of mountaintop coal mining on streams and wetlands are reviewed.

We join our own J.W. Randolph of Appalachian Voices in applauding that move.

Quote of the Day

"That is wrong on such a gut level."

--Austin Hall, looking at pictures of West Virginia mountains scarred by mountaintop removal coal mining (quoted here)