Appalachia pays price for rule change

If you want an example of just how much of a difference a President can make in terms of damaging the environment, here's a case in point. Mountaintop removal, as it has become known, is the process whereby coal is extracted from a mountain by wiping it bare of foliage and then blasting away at the rock until the mountain is essentially no more.

As the article points out, this practice was common for years until concerns were raised about the damage to waterways particularly around West Virginia where 700 miles of mountain streams were buried. Lawsuits began flying and the practice was dramatically scaled back within the industry.

A 2002 rule change by the Bush Administration reclassified all the debris from "waste" to "fill." They get points for creativity on this one. Unfortunately, what has already happened in West Virginia is going to spread around the country until we have more elected officials, particularly in the White House, that take environmental issues seriously.