It is not surprising, with the Bush administrations pro-industry posture, that little is done to limit the damage caused by coal production to both the environment and human health. The administration has generally favored powerful coal interests, which make large donations to candidates and political parties. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, almost 70 percent of coal companies donations have gone to the Republican Party, though Congressional Democrats have also benefited. Environmental and health advocates, moreover, have been critical of what they see as patronage appointments to the Mine Safety and Health Administration.
Although environmental and human damage is evident wherever coal is mined and processed, few areas of the nation show the ravages as clearly as the Appalachian states. There the main mining method is mountaintop removal, which means literally blasting off the tops of mountains to reach the seams of coal beneath. The environmental damage has been great. Debris dumped from the former mountain tops has buried valleys and more than 1,000 miles of streams and waterways.
Instead of strengthening laws to shield the Appalachian countryside and local communities from human and environmental damage, the administration has taken steps to weaken existing protections. A regulation that went into effect in August 2007, for example, allows mountaintop removal to continue, on the condition that mine operators cause as little environmental damage as possible. Environmentalists, though, have said that the plan amounts to making waterway pollution legal by exempting coal mine wastes from a 1983 regulation known as the buffer zone rule, which prohibits surface coal-mining activities from disturbing areas within 100 feet of streams. Matthew Wasson, conservation director of Appalachian Voices, told America that the 1983 rule stemmed from lawsuits filed by families and communities near the mines. The new exemption, sought by the administration, is part of an effort to avoid compliance with the Clean Water Act. Environmentalists regard the buffer zone rule as among the few protections streams and valleys have from being buried by mountaintop removal operations.
Although most of the more easily accessible coal has already been mined, mountaintop removal nevertheless continues because of huge government subsidies. Dr. Wasson noted that the billions in subsidies make it economical for coal companies to keep on producing. If the matter were left to the free market, he added, you wouldnt see mountaintop removalits moving 20 tons of earth for one ton of coal, which except for the subsidies, wouldnt be economical at all.
The bulk of the nations coal supply is now coming from the West, and over 100 new coal-burning power plants are in the planning stage. Not all states, however, are happy about them. A Kansas state agency refused an air permit for two, and opinion polls there found that two-thirds of those questioned opposed the plants. Similarly, in Montana new coal-fired plants in the Great Plains portion of the state have faced opposition, including criticism by ranchers concerned about the impact on their water supply.
New technologies, like converting coal to liquid for easier transportation, are among more recent approaches in the search for clean energy. The process involves heating coal to 1,000 degrees and mixing it with water. This requires huge amounts of water, however, and the cost of a plant would likely reach the billions. Adding to its dubious practicability is the fact that it would increase greenhouse gas emissions, because the liquification of coal releases large amounts of carbon dioxide. Proponents claim that the carbon dioxide could be stored underground through so-called carbon sequestration. But again, huge costs would be involved and the procedure has yet to be tried. Dr. Wasson sees these new technologies as a step in the wrong direction.
For Wasson and many environmentalists, the wiser route would involve investing in wind and solar energy, painless measures that would cost less than what were now spending in subsidies for the coal industry. Unfortunately, he went on, the issue is not about a lack of alternatives to coal use, but rather a powerful set of vested interests that have a strong incentive to keep us on the current track, that is, ever greater use of coal. Congress should back clean energy options more forcefully and resist the coal industrys push for increased production and, as its consequence, more pollution.