Appalachian Voices: Follow the coal money

Want to know how much money your elected representative in Washington, D.C., received from the coal industry? A North Carolina environmental group is pledging to put that information right at your fingertips.

A new Web site tracks and lists the amount of donations that federal politicians receive from coal interests. Follow the Coal Money, at www.followthecoalmoney.org, is the latest salvo in what is turning out to be an increasingly heated battle over the future of coal in the nation's energy policy.

I'm not saying it is a big corporate conspiracy, but what (the money) is being spent for, it is being spent for a good reason, said Matt Wasson, director of programs for Appalachian Voices, which runs the site.

Coal is once again front and center as the nation's top leaders debate energy policy. Both presidential candidates have pledged to take actions to curb global warming, yet at the same time energy use is on the rise, thanks in part to new technology. For example, one Australian study found that a Playstation 3 uses five times the amount of energy as a five-foot high refrigerator.

Coal remains among the cheapest and most abundant energy-producing natural resource. Yet concerns over its environmental impacts have helped stop plans for new coal-burning power plants across the nation.

The coal industry is fighting back by ramping up its public relations efforts. Over the past year it has quadrupled its budget for its primary political campaign, called the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, according to news reports The campaign has run advertisements on TV touting the benefits of coal and maintains its own Web site at www.americaspower.org.

Follow the Coal Money is partly a response to that campaign. Its mission is touted on the front page: As Congress debates how to address two of coal's biggest problems mountaintop removal and global warming you can find out how polluters are influencing lawmakers with their dirty coal money.
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I believe it is simply a given that politicians are too devoid of true moral insight as to understand the amount of damage this form of energy continues to do to the planet and the health and safety of human beings. This is why I have little faith that any sort of comprehensive climate bill will pass in Congress regardless of who sits in the White House. In order for that to happen they would have to have a moral epiphany... or, see that the people have taken it upon themselves to bring the alternate energies we need to sustain ourselves and this planet to market. Solar and wind are booming now, but you won't hear that from the corrupt Congress that continues to collect the money of the coal and nuclear industries while touting how much they are for the environment... even as they work to kill tax incentives for those very alternate energy sources they claim we need.

The site Appalachian Voices put together now allows you to follow the members of Congress who talk out of both sides of their mouths to see how much they are taking from coal and to hold them accountable for it as they are accomplices in the continued erosion of our environment. Hopefully louder voices will be heard on the part of the people knowing they have the power to then tell these representatives that if they continue to side with the destruction of our planet in the form of pollution and it's contribution to climate change that we the people have the power to see to it that they do not serve us any longer. It has to begin with us, because it sure isn't going to begin with them.