Industry Group Portrays West Virginia Pro-Coal Rally As a 'Call to Arms'

There was plenty of early industry backlash to EPA's historic decision last week to veto the permit for Arch Coal's planned mega-mine in Appalachia, as I wrote about last week. More recently, it has risen to a disturbing tenor.

A group called the "Friends of Coal" has been promoting a pro-coal rally tomorrow planned by West Virginia's acting governor at the state capital, and, on its web site, it called the rally a "call to arms," as The Charleston Gazette reported today.  The group played defensive when contacted by reporter Ken Ward, Jr., calling it "a figure of speech," and already it has removed the phrase from its web site. But the careless use of violent rhetoric in the wake of the Tuscon tragedy also displays an unseemly insensitivity as the nation still mourns.

EPA's decision itself was a huge victory for environmental groups, but it certainly has renewed industry rhetoric against the agency's moves to tighten environmental restrictions on the most devastating mining practice on Earth. As Appalachian Voices blogger Matt Wasson notes, the industry and many of its beholden state politicians have now set sites on Congress to "rein in the EPA and prevent the agency from promulgating new rules or enforcing existing ones." He calls the Spruce mine veto the centerpiece of this new narrative.

This may explain why Arch Coal was so unwilling to negotiate with EPA. If EPA vetoed the permit, opponents of coal regulation knew they would be able to twist the facts to suit their interests—as Wasson notes, maybe this was their game plan all along. Revelations this week indicate that Arch Coal could have cut stream damages in half without adding much to mining costs, and EPA literally bent over backwards to try to avoid a veto—to the extent that the agency actually hired its own mining engineering consultants to help Arch Coal reduce the impacts of its project.

Despite all of this, Arch Coal was unwilling to negotiate. Now we are left with scary pro-coal rallies decrying "regulatory burden."

None of this rhetoric is appreciated by residents of West Virginia. As coalfield journalist Jeff Biggers notes, "Besieged coalfields residents live daily with the violence of mountaintop removal mining," and they deserve more.

Appalachian Voices is one group that is working to represent the interests of real people in the coalfields at both the state and national level. It is not a national environmental organization swooping in from above, as these things are sometimes perceived. Headquartered in Boone, North Carolina, it is in direct contact with the people who live the impacts of coal on their communities. But the group also has the savvy to navigate the complicated world of the DC scene, in order to help fend off the rising tide of industry attacks in Congress.

You can support their work by using their web form to contact your member of Congress. Rather than gut environmental protections, Congress should support legislation that follows EPA's example and permanently protects Appalachian communities from the devastation of mountaintop removal mining.

Again, you can sign onto their campaign at this link.

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Photo credit: Andy54321 via Flickr