A Victory in the War Against King Coal!

Hey, folks. As I was kicking back after a full day of gardening last evening, I nearly fell off the couch when Jim Lehrer of PBS Newshour announced that the Obama administration (through the EPA) has halted all Mountaintop Removal Mining Permits for further review. This means that over 200 current and future MTR operations are on hold! Amazing. The potential for "change you can believe in" is palpable; it is within the president's grasp (and our grasp) to put a permanent end to the coal industry's practice of destroying Appalachia for profit. Go to the ilovemountains.org link on my list of links (to the right) for details of this historic, momentous, incredibly promising development. Most major news sources covered the story last night (CBS, MSNBC, PBS to name a few). I'm stoked! When this semester began, I had very little hope that significant changes would be made, particularly after the 4th circuit court overturned a lower courts ruling that MTR mining permits violated the clean water act (back in February). As it turns out, it was the 4th circuit's ruling (misruling!) that has pushed us to this new threshold!