Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Legislature Rocky Top(less): Environmentalists Ask for Haslam's Help to Stop Mountaintop Removal Mining
Posted by Jeff Woods on Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 10:02 AM
I'm not in favor of mountaintop removal, OK? I'm not. But I'm also not willing to say that we're not going to mine coal in Tennessee anymore.
Tennessee environmentalists say that statement by Bill Haslam at a 2010 campaign debate means he's against blowing the tops off our mountains, and they're asking the governor to get behind their bill banning that devastating method of mining.
Hah! Don't they recognize BS when they hear it? Candidate Haslam obviously was trying to have it both ways on this issue. He was parroting the Republican Party line: Of course, he's against destroying our state's scenic heritage. (Who isn't?) But America needs coal and that bill from those wacky environmentalists would stop all coal mining in Tennessee. (Not.)
Even if Haslam lobbied for their bill, it wouldn't matter—not as long as Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey remains in charge of the Senate. As has been well-documented in the media, King Coal plays Ramsey like a slot machine.
Comments (5)
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I don't live in East TN so why should I care about blowing up mountains to get coal? (Just trying to be as parochial as most right wingers in this stupid state).
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The Tennessee Republican Party and Tennessee Lt. Governor Ron Ramsey's main campaign cash contributor is perhaps the former King Pharmaceuticals, Inc. CEO John M. Gregory (along with some of his family members and in-laws.
How did John Gregory get into the coal business? Gregory allowed the former owner of United Coal --- Jim McGolthin --- to invest into the once privately held King Pharmaceuticals, and inn 2006 the former owner of United Coal allowed Gregory to invest in United Coal.
During 2009, United Coal was sold to a Ukrainian coal and steel giant, Metinvest. 2009 was the same year that Metinvest located its World Wide Sales office in Blountville, Tennessee, approximately one mile away from Lt. Governor Ramsey's real estate and auction business. If you bother to located the Metinvest-United Coal World Wide Sale Office on Google Maps, you will find the Lt. Governor's Blountville home is located even closer to United Coal than is his real estate office.
The main pretext that Lt. Governor Ramsey uses as his crutch for advancing the strip mining Tennessee mountain tops follows something like this: "Coal companies need to strip mine in Tennessee to produce coal for domestic electric power generation." The main problem for Ramsey is that Metinvest was drawn into Appalachia (and Tennessee) is to strip mine coals --- both "steam coal" (primarily for electric power production" and "met coal" or "coaking coal" (metallurgical coal primarily used for the producing metals, especially high grade steel) --- and then exporting much of these exploited Appalachian coal reserves overseas to Eastern Europe, Asia, and South America in order to supply foreign industries and create jobs overseas for foreign workers.
For some one who is seemingly worried about Islamic militants (real or imagined) as Lt. Gov. Ramsey famously demonstrated himself to be within international news reports, you would have to wonder why Ramsey would accelerate the destruction of Tennessee mountains by strip mining coal companies, more particularly as the Ukrainian METINVEST INTERNATIONAL SA maintained a sales center in Tehran, Iran:
Metinvest International SA Iran Representative Office
Address: Unit 16-3, PAM Tower, No 291, Zafar Ave, Africa Exp, Tehran, Iran
Tel.: +98 (21) 8888 7367, +98 (21) 8888 2224
Fax: +98 (21) 8888 7381
May 8, 2009
http://web.archive.org/web/20090508092115/…
March 8, 2010
http://web.archive.org/web/20100308051855/…
Yup...Republican TNGA Lt. Governor Ron Ramsey is advancing the strip mining of Tennessee mountain tops so that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad can purchase the high grade steel that his county needs for the development of Iranian nuclear weapons plants. Way to go, Ron.
I guess we've all got the government we wanted? Don't ya'll just love it? Dumb,stupid Republicans!!!!!
Well I DO live in East Tennessee and I DON'T want my mountains leveled so the coal can be shipped to India or China. I DON'T want the water quality ruined so some people will have the convenience of wasting energy heating/cooling 5000 sq. ft. homes or burning billions of KWH in places like Vegas. I DO want the mountains and streams left for all to hike in or fish in or just set back and watch the sun set behind the mountains. We waste far too much energy in the US. If there was an escalating rate scale for energy so that big consumers paid a higher rate then there would be a trend toward the conservation we need.
