President Obama,
Mr. President, I’m asking you to make ending mountaintop removal a top priority in your second term.
Mountaintop removal coal mining remains one of the greatest environmental threats facing our country. More than 500 of the nation’s oldest mountains have already been destroyed and headwaters streams that feed major rivers and the drinking water supply of millions of Americans are polluted and destroyed every day that mountaintop removal is allowed to continue.
When you introduced your science team in Dec. 2008, you committed your administration to making decisions based on science and facts. You told the American people, “it’s about listening to what our scientists have to say, even when it’s inconvenient — especially when it’s inconvenient."
Your administration has not yet lived up to your commitment to science-based decision-making when it comes to mountaintop removal.
For instance, the Army Corps of Engineers is not “listening to scientists” when it continues to issue permits for new mountaintop removal mines. In 2010, thirteen of the nation’s top stream biologists wrote in an article published in Science: “Clearly, current attempts to regulate [mountaintop removal mining] practices are inadequate. Mining permits are being issued despite the preponderance of scientific evidence that impacts are pervasive and irreversible and that mitigation cannot compensate for the losses.”
Since you were elected president, more than 20 studies have been published demonstrating the devastating impacts of mountaintop removal on the health and well-being of nearby residents. Your agencies have yet to act on these new scientific findings.
Mr. President, they are still blowing up mountains in Appalachia and citizens are still getting sick, dying prematurely, and living in poverty as a result. We need you to live up to your promise.
There are no more excuses, mountaintop removal should be ended now.
Please end the travesty of mountaintop removal and help bring new hope and prosperity to mining communities by doing these three things in your second term:
1) Stop Mountaintop Removal! Immediately end permitting of new mountaintop removal mines and instruct the Office of Surface Mining, Reclamation and Enforcement to issue a strong Stream Protection Rule that does what scientists say is necessary: bans the dumping of mine waste into streams.
2) Support a Just Transition for Mining Communities: Instruct the Appalachian Regional Commission and the United States Department of Agriculture's Rural Development Fund to invest in entrepreneurs, infrastructure, and sustainable development in Appalachia and work with Congress to increase Abandoned Mine Land funds for Appalachian states and ensure the fund won’t expire in 2021.
3) Enforce the Law: The coal industry has routinely ignored the Clean Water Act and the Surface Mine Control and Reclamation Act, while state agencies that enforce those laws have turned a blind eye. Your agencies must increase oversight of the permitting and enforcement programs in Virginia, Kentucky, and West Virginia to ensure they protect public health and adhere to the law, or else rescind those states’ primacy to administer their own mine and water permitting programs.
Discuss the petition
Ending Mountaintop Removal strip mining's time has arrived! Make your voice heard.
What about all the jobs me and many many more lost ?? I bet your one of the fat cats thats made enough money and biggest wory is what your driving and look like ??
I am not and have never been "comfortable" concerning money. I make choices about what I do as how it will affect the planet. If some lose their jobs and RE-TRAIN for another, then good. We only have THIS ONE PLANET!
The late, and in my opinion, great singer/song writer John Denver said it best, in one line, " more people, more scars upon the land..." Too many people, too many energy demands, too much raping and pillaging of poor old Mother Earth.
Carly, But Americans need to learn to conserve their energy usage. We are gluttons. We should not be fully heating rooms that we are not living in for the greater part of the day (example, bedrooms). We heat and cool huge homes with no one in them for the greater part of the day. America needs to change it's entire way of thinking first. Don't you agree?
The coal companies are getting away with murder - streams and rivers are being destroyed. PLEASE ACT NOW to stop DIRTY COAL from destroying MY mountains - Momma Nature.
What about all of the little people just making anough to stay off Unemployment.Ive got 3 exts. since Obomba has started this.Do you live without electric things ??
for quite a few years i have lived with one solar panel providing 12volt electric for myself and my family. i choose to do this, i know many don't have the choice, but really living without much electricity isn't so bad. we also have woodburning stoves to keep us warm. regarding this campaign, what people are saying isn't lets do without electricity, but let's get the government to invest in clean electricity like solar and wind and hydro. we dont need coal power. we can't replace mountains the way they were. let's start thinking long term for our children's children.
It's our own DUMB fault!
Hedonist AMERICA continues to WASTE over 70% of the energy we consume. The energy WASTE is EVERYWHERE. 100's of Millions of lights burn unnecessarily every day and night. We overHeat, overCool, and overDRIVE as if it does not matter.
Open YOUR eyes and speak out to STOP the/our/your energy WASTE!
I agree 100% Lowell. The conversation must start with ways in which we can all change our habits. To change habits there needs to be a national conversation about it; then, tax incentives toward Green Energy and conservation. Examples would be a tax incentive for new construction solar energy; thermostats that adjust room temperatures in each and every room, not merely throughout the entire house (like dropping down the entire house temps at night); discounts for those who conserve the most energy from month to month, year to year, etc.. But NO, that will never happen because then you won't be consuming more energy, the industry will loose money. This is ALL about the fossil fuel industry's bottom line, PROFITS.
Same one's over and over how many times must we sign them?
Yeap Songbird. But we keep signing them until the "we" is in such great numbers that the "they" can't ignore us any longer.