Monday, March 16, 2009
Politics / Woods If Bredesen Won't Save Our Mountains, Maybe Obama Will
Posted by Jeff Woods on Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 10:39 AM
At issue is a 2002 rule by the Bush administration that brazenly took mining waste off the list of the Clean Water Act's prohibited pollutants. Environmentalists want the Obama White House to order the Corps of Engineers to suspend mining permits until that rule is reversed.
If it were up to our governor, we could kiss our mountains goodbye. He's afraid the state might have to compensate coal companies if the legislature passes a ban on mountaintop removal mining. "I certainly don't have the money to go buy every seam of coal in the state," he says.
Environmentalists have pointed out that we'd have to compensate coal companies only under rare circumstances, namely when the coal isn't accessible by any other means than blowing up the mountain. But even if the state had to buy every coal seam in Tennessee, wouldn't that be worth it to save the main attractions for a gazillion-dollar tourism industry?
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