Big Green environmentalists are pushing the Environmental Protection Agency to ban “mountaintop removal” coal mining. To that end, the enviros have organized a vintage politically correct national pr campaign dubbed “Music Saves Mountaintops” featuring part country music and part the usual Natural Resources Defense Council agitprop.
The slogan of the campaign is “Save a Mountain, build a wind mill,” referring to the contention of President Obama and his Big Green allies that alternative energy sources like wind can replace energy generated by fossil fuels. Eighty-seven percent of America’s energy is currently produced using coal, natural gas and oil.
The U.S. Department of Energy projects that alternative energy sources won’t be able to replace significant amounts of fossil fuel generation before 2030.
That is part of the reason why the Big Green anti-mountaintop removal campaign isn’t playing well at all with the coal miners who are being put out of work. Hundreds of miners from West Virginia, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Virginia rallied Wednesday on Capitol Hill to hear music by Stella Parton, and speeches blasting EPA from a bipartisan lineup of congressmen.
Among the speakers were Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-WV, Sen. Mark Warner, D-VA, Sen. Jim Webb, D-VA, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY, Rep. Hal Rogers, R-KY, and West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin, who is the Democrat senatorial nominee seeking the Senate seat formerly held by Sen. Robert Byrd.
A rival Music Saves Mountains rally attracted only three dozen participants, according to AP.
In April, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson announced stringent new regulations on the process that effectively mean an end to its use in most cases.
Thomas Pyle, president of the Institute for Energy Research (IER), an industry-backed think tank, said the new EPA rule “will bankrupt the coal industry and cause electricity prices to ‘necessarily skyrocket,’ fulfilling two more promises President Obama made while running for office. The magnitude of this EPA decision on new and renewal permits in Appalachia will cost American jobs and put mom and pop operators out of business.”
Pyle was referring to Obama’s 2008 statement that his energy and environmental policies would “necessarily skyrocket” consumer costs for energy.
