Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Legislature Senators Grovel Before King Coal
Posted by Jeff Woods on Wed, Jun 9, 2010 at 12:10 PM
- Sen. Andy Berke
Berke got the bright idea to put the Senate on the spot on mountaintop removal mining after Republicans suspended the rules to recall their fabulous Health Freedom Act from a closed committee last week.
“Are we in the hands of a few people in the coal lobby or are we with Tennesseans?” Berke asked.
Dumb question. Senate speaker Ron Ramsey is a puppet of coal companies, which have given him nearly $200,000 in campaign contributions in a year. The Chattanooga Times Free Press nailed Ramsey on this in an editorial today. No way was Ramsey's Senate about to recall this bill.
Just to make sure things didn't get out of hand, Ramsey tried to stifle the debate, interrupting Sen. Doug Jackson as he was denouncing "the profiteers who are blowing up the mountains and releasing toxins into the environment."
“Senator Jackson, the motion is to recall,” Ramsey said. “Once it’s before us, we debate the merits of the bill.”
Jackson replied: “By golly if you can’t give reasons to recall, if permanent harm to the environment, if harm to the people of Tennessee is what this bill is about and we can’t talk about it and we can’t provide the reasons for suspending the rules, then it seems that we’re tying the hands of the advocates who want to bring this bill to the floor.”
Republicans gave various lame excuses for why it was OK to recall the pointless Health Freedom Act but not this bill to save Tennessee’s natural heritage. Sen. Ken Yager argued the committee heard only those in favor of the legislation, not the other side. But of course, this bill has been languishing in the legislature for years, so everyone already knows what they think about it.
Jackson, who is the bill’s Senate sponsor, made the best point of the debate:
“If you look at the Gulf and what’s taking place today, if you look back through the history of ecological disasters in the past many decades of this country, those things didn’t just happen on their own. They happened because lawmakers and regulators turned a blind eye. They were allowed to happen.”
Update:
SEN. BERKE’S RESPONSE TO VOTE
AGAINST MOUNTAINTOP REMOVAL BANNASHVILLE — State Sen. Andy Berke (D-Chattanooga) expressed disappointment that a vote to consider banning mountaintop removal coal mining failed in the State Senate on Wednesday.
“It’s shameful that a bill to protect our environment and our tourism industry died because of parliamentary tricks, political interests and powerful lobbyists,” Berke said.
The effort to recall Senate Bill 1398 from a Senate committee that never took up the bill failed 12-14, with all ayes coming from Senate Democrats. Berke made the motion to recall the bill after Senate Republicans launched a similar attempt last week to force through unconstitutional legislation concerning healthcare.
Under SB1398, coal mining in Tennessee would not be banned. Only surface coal mining above 2,000 feet — also known as ridge line mining, or mountaintop removal — would be illegal in Tennessee. Mountaintop removal results in the release of the coal pollutant selenium that poisons fish and works its way up the food chain.
The ban on mountaintop mining has won widespread approval from a range of Tennesseans, including conservation advocates, tourism industry leaders, and faith-based groups, who argue that mountaintop removal destroys God’s creation. Mountaintop removal mining employs less than 400 people in Tennessee, and actually takes away jobs by replacing people with dynamite. Tourism in Tennessee, meanwhile, generates a $14.2 billion economic impact and employs more than 184,700 Tennesseans.
“The State Senate had a choice between the interests of the coal lobby and protecting our Tennessee way of life,” Berke said. “They made the wrong choice.”
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From the CTFP editorial: "(Ramsey) He breached that barrier, for the first time in Tennessee's legislative history, when he permitted two Republican senators last week to call up a bill, which also had not passed through a committee, to allow a floor vote on a bill..."
Sounds like the Washington way of doing things to me. Wonder if Ramsey will give himself the boot?
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