How corporate friendly is this? Administration puts the brakes on Mountain Top Mining.

[cali]

For those that insist that everything the admin does is to benefit corporations:

EPA halts hundreds of mountaintop mining permits
By DINA CAPPIELLO – 18 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Environmental Protection Agency is putting on hold hundreds of mountaintop coal-mining permits until it can evaluate the projects' impacts on streams and wetlands.

The decision was announced Tuesday by EPA administrator Lisa Jackson. It targets a controversial practice by coal mining companies that dump waste from mountaintop mining into streams and wetlands.

It could delay more than a hundred permits being sought by companies wanting to begin blasting mountaintops to access coal.

The EPA also denied two permits the Army Corps of Engineers was planning to issue that would allow companies to fill thousands of feet of streams with mining waste in West Virginia and Kentucky.

<snip>

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iNvAPXr-Xk5Ea7pzDT6hXfdB1xowD974HN7O4\

This is really great news.

[Imperialism Inc.]

1. I saw that yesterday and it IS very good news.

I'm fairly convinced that, in general, Obama wants to do the right things. It is such a joy to see someone in the White House with his level of competence and morals.

[ThomWV]

2. I tend to agree but tell me why the news is so good

I ask this question honestly. What is so good about it? Have you ever actually seen a "mountain top removal' site and how is it distinguished from normal strip mining and reclaimation? How is it inherently wrong to fill the valley at a lower level than it is naturally filled now? Oh, and I don't know how much you know about the topography of the lands where this sort of mining is done but while they certainly dump into valleys you'd be awfully hard pressed to find 'wet lands' anywhere that this sort of mining is profitable.

[cali]

3. I have seen mountain top removal sites- pretty ghastly and desolate

and enough has been written about the environmental degradation and destruction they impose, for me to wonder why you're asking this question.

And according to everything I've ever read, MTR is far more destructive even than strip mining.