Appalachia // Current

Americans to Bush-STOP MOUNTAINTOP MINING

In the first ever nationwide poll on mountaintop removal mining, two out of three Americans opposed recent efforts by the Bush... more

resolute
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Appalachia grows beyond impoverished mountains

Folks in the heart of Appalachia aren't amused that President Bush, with the stroke of his pen, has redrawn Appalachia's... more

bedeboop
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An End To Mountaintop Removal Mining?

Mountaintop removal could be ended by as early as next year, said a leader in an environmental group working to halt the... more

goldenways
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Appalachian residents have found the antidote to coal: Wind

If Senator Barack Obama ever needs a living symbol of change we can believe in, and a hopeful way to transcend the dirty politics of our failed energy policies, he should go and see the future of renewable energy in the Coal River Valley in West Virginia.

Yes, renewable energy in Appalachia.

Something historic is taking place in West Virginia this summer. Faced with an impending proposal to stripmine over 6,600 acres -- nearly 10 square miles -- in the Coal River Valley, including one of the last great mountains in that range, an extraordinary movement of local residents and coal mining families have come up with a counter proposal for an even more effective wind farm.

Mother Jones, the miners' angel, once declared: "Pray for the dead, and fight like hell for the living."

Having witnessed the destruction of over 470 mountains and their adjacent communities in Appalachia, the Coal River Valley citizens are doing just that. On the frontlines of one of the most tragic environmental and human rights scandals in modern American history, the community-wide Coal River wind advocates have devised a blueprint to get beyond the divisive regional politics and break the stranglehold of King Coal on the central Appalachian economies.

The Coal River Wind Project is the first bottom-up community-based full scale assessment to directly counter the nightmare of mountaintop removal with a renewable energy and economy alternative prior to the actual mining.

We have a choice. It is not simply coal or no coal. Jobs or no jobs. The issue is how do we create jobs and clean energy forever, and begin the transition in Appalachia and America away from dirty coal.
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This is so wonderful. To see residents standing up to big coal to truly bring jobs and health to the Appalachians. Wind is the alternate energy source for this area, and I stand with them in getting this done. And if Barack Obama does care for change, he will stop touting "clean coal" and stand by these residents and their initiative to bring real clean energy and jobs to this part of the country that has been so devastated by the toxic legacy coal has left in its wake.If Senator Barack Obama ever needs a living symbol of change we can believe in, and a hopeful way to transcend the dirty politics... more

JanforGore
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44 responses

4 months ago

Obama's record on coal support

In May 1998, at the urging of the state's coal industry, the Illinois Legislature passed a bill condemning the Kyoto global warming treaty and forbidding state efforts to regulate greenhouse gases.

Barack Obama voted "aye."

The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee now calls climate change "one of the greatest moral challenges of our generation," and proposes cutting carbon emissions 80% by 2050. But as a state senator, from 1997 to 2004, he usually supported bills sought by coal interests, according to legislative records and interviews.

Obama is not the only politician whose public stance has shifted on global warming, which a scientific consensus says has been caused chiefly by the burning of coal, oil and natural gas. Presumptive Republican nominee John McCain, who now backs limits on carbon emissions, was among 95 U.S. senators who voted in 1997 to oppose the Kyoto Protocol, an emissions reduction scheme that had been negotiated by then-vice president Al Gore.

Still, Obama, who touts his independence from special interests, made a point of embracing the coal industry as part of his quest for statewide office. When he ran for U.S. Senate in 2004, he was flanked by mine workers to proclaim that "there's always going to be a role for coal" in Illinois.

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Obama's other votes on coal in the state Senate included:

• In 1997, he voted to divert sales taxes to a fund for grants to help reopening closed coal mines and "incentives to attract new businesses that use coal."

• In 2001, Obama voted for legislation that offered $3.5 billion in loan guarantees to build coal-fired power plants with no ability to control carbon emissions.

• In 2003, he voted to allow $300 million in taxpayer-backed bonds to build or expand coal-fired power plants.

"You know, I am a strong supporter, I think, of downstate coal interests and our need to prop up and improve the outputs downstate," Obama said on the Senate floor before voting on the 2001 bill.
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I expect to see this from a Republican. I expected better from a Democrat. In May 1998, at the urging of the state's coal industry, the Illinois Legislature passed a bill condemning the Kyoto global... more