by Jonathan Hiskes
Offshore drilling,
auto-efficiency standards,
water-heater regs, green jobs for
strippers … there’s a ton going on this week.
But today’s big news is a lot brighter than yesterday’s offshore drilling hubbub: the Obama administration announced sweeping new regulations for mountaintop removal, the coal-mining method that tends to (a) remove mountaintops, (b) fill mountain valleys with rubble, and (c) pollute waterways downstream.
The new EPA regs focus on clean water, which limits the ability of mining companies to dump waste freely, which puts the whole mountaintop-removal method in jeopardy. So it’s kind of a big deal. Both mining advocates and mountain-and-water defenders agree on this.
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For all the
symbolic weight that offshore drilling carries, Fineman’s right that coal is America’s real energy dilemma. It’s cheaper than oil, dirtier than oil, and we have a lot of it. So the new protections are nothing to sniff at.
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