As the ravages of mountaintop removal coal mining -- including the re-emerging scandal of reckless black lung policies on strip miners -- continue to mount despite the shift of coal production to the heartland and western Power River Basin -- President Obama has an election-year opportunity to declare an armistice in the polarized Appalachian coalfields, mend a nearly 40-year mining policy of betrayal, and call an end to the most divisive and egregious human rights and environmental violation sanctioned by our federal government.
There is no two without three, as the saying goes: On the heels of recognizing the civil rights of gay marriage and deferring prosecution of undocumented DREAM Act youth, Obama should keep his 2008 campaign promise, travel to Appalachia and publicly announce a timeline to enact a mountaintop removal moratorium and launch a green jobs coalfield regeneration fund.
Let's be real: With faux West Virginia Democrats like Sen. Joe Manchin and Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin jumping ship, and a prison inmate giving the president a run for his money in the Democratic primaries, Obama has nothing to lose and everything to gain by bringing the Appalachian coalfields of West Virginia, eastern Kentucky, southwestern Virginia and eastern Tennessee into a new era of clean energy and sustainable economic development.
Fresh from his recent road to Damascus awakening on the stranglehold of Big Coal, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (WV-D) might even host the president's announcement.
The venerable West Virginia statesman Ken Hechler once called it a "Truman moment" for Obama.
And it should happen on August 3, the anniversary of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, President Jimmy Carter's disastrous compromise that has led to a nearly 40-year regulatory nightmare of federally sanctioned mountaintop removal. As I noted a few years ago:
August 3rd is not simply the anniversary of a benign Act; it is a sobering cautionary tale for today's Obama administration and young environmentalists of the catastrophic effects of well-meaning liberal Democrats who engage in compromises with an untenable and ruthless coal industry.
On August 3rd, 1977, surrounded in the White House Rose Garden by beleaguered coalfield residents and environmentalists who had waged a ten-year campaign to abolish strip-mining, President Jimmy Carter signed the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act with great fanfare. President Carter may have attempted to put on a good face, but he admitted to the 300 guests, according to the New York Times, "in many ways, this has been a disappointing effort." Calling it a "watered down" bill, Carter added, "I'm not completely satisfied with the legislation. I would prefer to have a stricter strip mining bill.""The President's other main objection to the bill," wrote the New York Times, "is that it allows the mining companies to cut off the tops of Appalachian mountains to reach entire seams of coal."
Outraged by this duplicitous compromise to grant federal sanctioning of mountaintop removal mining, an "Appalachian Coalition" of coalfield residents and environmental groups called the SMCRA a "blatant travesty."
In the meantime, the ACHE ACT citizens movement by Appalachian coal mining communities to pass a law in Congress for a mountaintop removal moratorium continues to gain ground. Check out their new PSA by On Coal River filmmaker Adams Wood:
Follow Jeff Biggers on Twitter @JeffRBiggers
"travel to Appalachia and publicly announce a timeline to enact a mountaintop removal moratorium.."
Yeah, he should do that. Let the president of the USA go to Coal Country and tell them that he is going to help them by taking their jobs away. Yeah, let him do that.
Actually, it would be a very smart move. I've been following the postings in the liberal press and blogs, and I am astonished at how many progressives feel so betrayed that they have already pledged their vote to Stein or Anderson, despite the fact that they know it could mean a Romney presidency.
I've never seen the Left so discouraged, even back in the days of Vietnam, and this move might be the only thing that could save Obama's second term. Is he smart enough to realize it? Of course, it would still be a cynical move - not because he cares about our mountains, but because he wants to keep his job, but what the heck, we'll take it any way we can get it.
As for Rocky, let's not forget that when the Arch Spruce permit was rescinded (the only such MTR permit to have met such a fate), our fine flip flopping senator (remember single payer/public option?) protested in the loudest possible terms. I think the only reason that Obama's industry lapdog EPA rescinded the permit was because they knew a federal judge would eventually reinstate it, and that's exactly what happened.
How can we not be cynical?
Respectfully,
Eric Mathis