Team Obama Challenges Bush-Era Gifts to Dirty Coal

The Obama administration launched a two-front assault on dirty coal today, targeting a series of last-minute gifts bestowed upon the industry by the Bush administration.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar went after mountaintop mining, a practice that has been fouling streams and damaging homesteads across Appalachia.

The EPA, meanwhile, announced it would take a closer look at where the coal goes after it leaves the mines – in particular, three Bush-era decisions that pulled teeth from the federal New Source Review (NSR) rules governing air pollution permits for new factory and power plant construction.

Protecting Appalachia

In the mountaintop mining fight, Salazar declared that a controversial “stream buffer zone rule” for dumping mine waste, issued by the Bush administration in December, was "legally defective" and a danger to the health of Appalachia’s waterways. He stressed that he supports developing U.S. coal supplies, but not at the expense of communities, habitats and wildlife.

“In its last weeks in office, the Bush administration pushed through a rule that allows coal mine operators to dump mountaintop fill into stream beds if it’s found to be the cheapest and most convenient disposal option,” Salazar said.

“The so-called ‘stream buffer zone rule’ simply doesn’t pass muster with respect to adequately protecting water quality and stream habitat that communities rely on in coal country.

"It doesn't pass the smell test."

Salazar said the administration will ask a U.S. District Court judge to vacate the rule.

Once that happens, a somewhat stricter 1983 stream buffer zone regulation will be in effect, and the Office of Surface mining will begin developing comprehensive new regulations that addresses what Salazar describes as ambiguities and "interpretational gaps" in past rules.

“It's a great day for the fragile ecosystem of the Appalachians, as well as the quality of life for the people who live here," said Todd Bailey, a member of Kentuckians for the Commonwealth who lives uneasily with a mountaintop mining operation behind his home.

Salazar is headed down the right path, but the administration still has far to go to truly protect the region, said Mary Ann Hitt of the Sierra Club, which sued over the Bush rule.

Mountaintop mining was already devastating Appalachia before the Bush administration came along. Under the 1983 law, mountaintop miners were legally required to observe a 100-foot buffer zone around streams when they dumped the mining “overburden” – industry jargon for the remains of mountaintops blown off to get at coal seams. Yet despite the rule, nearly 2,000 miles of streams have been either completely buried in mining debris or poisoned by heavy metals that leached from the overburden. The drinking water of thousands of people living downstream from mines has been contaminated in West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee.

The Bush administration loosened the rules even more by allowing miners to dump their overburden into valley streams if the alternatives disposal methods were "unreasonable," which often translated into “more expensive.”

"With the explosives and bulldozers standing by, it will take tough enforcement and more rule changes and legislation to end mountaintop removal coal mining completely,” Hitt said.

Fired Up Over Power Plants

At the other end of coal’s lifecycle, the EPA announced it would review three Bush administration rulings that deal with pre-construction permits for polluters, including power plants.