“Crowds Pack Mining Hearings”  - “Voices Ring out” - “Let us Work!”

Watch Local TV Coverage from WYMT Tomorrow, Thursday, October 15, the Corps will hold the remaining three hearings in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Cambridge, Ohio; and Big Stone Gap, Virginia. The NWP 21 permit allows for environmentally responsible coal production while minimizing unnecessary bureaucratic delays.  Maintaining the NWP 21 is essential to keeping thousands of high-paying jobs in the Appalachian region. 

Given the potential economic harm that could arise from suspending NWP-21, Senator Inhofe asked the Corps to extend the public comment period and conduct hearings throughout Appalachia so that federal officials could better understand how their decisions affect local communities and the jobs that support them. 

Here is what they said:

Watch: WSAZ - "Voices Ring Out Regarding Mountaintop Mining" and WYMT - "Pro Coal crowds pack mining hearing"

Below are a sampling of quotes from the hearings:

Kentucky Senator Ray Jones (D):  "My children will go to school in Pike County, I don't want them to have to learn to speak Chinese (referring to the loss of mining jobs to China).That is what will happen if you listen to these left-wing liberals."  Article

Elmer Pennington, Miner: "Every evening when I come home, the first thing they do when they come to the door is they look at me and they say, 'Dad, you still working or are you laid off?'" Article 

John Harden, Miner:  "If you all do away with this provision, you will not shut down mountaintop removal; you will totally shut down mining."   Article

Tom Michael, Engineer: "What it's doing is it's taking jobs away from West Virginians, and it's taking away a very valuable source of fuel for our nation. It's going to wreck the economy in West Virginia." Article

West Virginia Senator Truman Chafin (D):  "Who keeps these lights on for the country if you take away 40 percent of the coal that's mined in southern West Virginia and eastern Kentucky?" Article

Before the hearings began yesterday, Senator Inhofe issued the following statement:

"I am pleased the Army Corps of Engineers responded to my request for openness and transparency by holding additional hearings on the proposed suspension of an essential national coal mining permit," Senator Inhofe said. "These hearings will be held across Appalachia, a region of the country where coal jobs sustain the livelihoods of small communities.  It is critical that the Corps hear directly from those who will be impacted by federal policies. I hope the discussion leads to a result that appropriately balances environmental protection with the concern for maintaining and creating jobs and growing local economies throughout Appalachia."

Senator Inhofe's EPW Committee staff is attending two of the hearings this week. Rebeckah Adcock, Minority Counsel on the Senate EPW Minority staff, was in Kentucky last night to present public comments on behalf of Sen. Inhofe. Matt Hite, EPW minority Counsel, will attend the Pittsburg hearing on Thursday and will also deliver remarks.  

Inhofe EPW Press Office News Round Up

Williamson Daily News  Pike expo center holds 5,000 - Excerpt: PIKEVILLE, Ky. - Over 5,000 people filled the East Kentucky Expo in Pike County Tuesday evening to voice their opinion regarding proposed changes to the surface mine permitting process. Colonel Keith Landry with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (COE) said this meeting was one in a series of hearings held to gather input from the public about Nation Wide Permit (NWP) 21. The Corps has proposed to prohibit surface mining, or mountain top removal (MTR) in seven states in the region, including Kentucky and West Virginia.

Metro News: Let us Work! - Excerpt: Inside the Charleston Civic Center Little Theatre, miners filled the seats past the facility's 738-person capacity for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers hearing on changing the surface mine permitting process. In the mean time, miners employed by surface mining are worried about the effect this will have on their livelihoods. Elmer Pennington, a miner who spoke Tuesday, says his family has a nightly discussion about his job security. "Every evening when I come home, the first thing they do when they come to the door is they look at me and they say, 'Dad, you still working or are you laid off?'" Pennington told the Corps panel. "What do you tell them? Ya'll are the ones trying to put us out of business."

WV Public Broadcasting: U.S. Army Corps meeting turns into pro-coal rally  - Excerpt: The hearing on the Corps' nationwide permits comes amid fears that the Obama Administration is trying to do away with mountaintop removal altogether. The Civic Center's Little Theater doors opened at 5:00, and by 5:30 coal supporters filled almost half of the theater's more than 700 seats. By the time the meeting started at 7, the theater was packed, and a crowd of coal supporters stood outside with signs. Tuesday's hearing in Charleston coincided with two others-in Kentucky and Tennessee-all to discuss the Army Corps' proposal to do away with or modify the nationwide permit. This form of general permit streamlines the permitting process for valley fills. These nationwide permits are supposed to be for uncontroversial valley fills that have only minimum cumulative adverse impacts on stream quality. But in June, the Corps announced that it was considering doing away with the permit, because now there are so many mountaintop removal sites the agency fears the environmental impacts are more than minimal. Meg Gaffney-Smith is the chief of the regulatory branch at the Corps Washington DC headquarters.

WV Metro News: Hearings Spill Out to the Streets  - Excerpt: While heated comments were exchanged in a public hearing inside the Charleston Civic Center Little Theatre Tuesday night, outside

hundreds of miners were sending their own message to federal regulators. "Let us work! Let us work," the crowd shouted repeatedly. They wanted the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to tell the Environmental Protection Agency how devastating changes to the permitting process would be to the economy of West Virginia." What it's doing is it's taking jobs away from West Virginians, and it's taking away a very valuable source of fuel for our nation. It's going to wreck the economy in West Virginia," said Tom Michael, an engineer with Massey Energy. The miners held signs outside criticizing the EPA while a panel from the Corps heard public comment on stopping the Nationwide Permit 21 under the federal Clean Water Act. That permit regulates valley fill work related to surface mining. The Corps is looking at suspending the process so they can eventually change the process to eliminate placing fill materials into streams and creeks in Appalachia.

WSAZ: Voices Ring Out Regarding Mountaintop Mining - Excerpt: PIKEVILLE, Ky. (WSAZ) -- What may have been the biggest battle yet over mountaintop mining grew loud and strong throughout the coalfields and beyond Tuesday night. The issue is a federal proposal to change the permitting process for surface mining. The fight is the environment versus the economy, with many forecasting doom if any change is made. Pro surface mining folks say any change in what is now a streamlined process to get a permit will destroy coal mining in Appalachia. Those who support a tougher permitting process say our streams and our land will die without change. A few thousand mostly pro-coal folks filled the Pikeville Expo Center, where the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said it wanted to hear from the public before deciding on an Obama Administration proposal to include more stream and land impact checks in granting permits to mine coal above ground. The loud and united crowd cheered speakers one-by-one who basically said -- if the Corps bans, suspends or modifies the current permitting system -- jobs and prosperity in the coalfields will just end, period. These hearings are underway in several states. The Corps said it will not make a decision on surface mining permits until it listens to all points of view. That decision may not come for several months.

AP: Raucous pro-coal crowds pack mining hearings - Excerpt:  PIKEVILLE, Ky. - Thousands of coal miners fearing the loss of jobs if mountaintop removal mining is curtailed or outlawed shouted down a handful of environmentalists at crowded public hearings Tuesday on the much-debated practice. Many in Kentucky and West Virginia wore hardhats and T-shirts and waved signs proclaiming the merits of coal. Environmentalists who have fought for decades to end the destructive form of mining that blasts away peaks to unearth coal showed up in small numbers. Mining supporters in West Virginia heckled the few environmentalists who testified in favor of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposal to eliminate or at least suspend a streamlined permitting process for surface mines in six Appalachian states. Hearings were also being held in Tennessee and are set for later this week in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia. If the corps continues with the streamlined permitting process, it is participating in genocide, mining opponent Maria Gunnoe said over shouts. "My concern here is that the people in the state of West Virginia are being sacrificed. This industry is sacrificing people," she said.

Charleston Daily Mail: Corps gets earful from coal supporters on mine permitting - Excerpt: More than 700 people, mostly mine industry supporters, packed an auditorium in the Civic Center for a U.S. Army Corps of Engineering public hearing. They used 3-minute speeches before a four-member governmental panel to attack the Obama administration's crackdown on surface mining and offer dire forecasts of West Virginia without coal mining. Opponents of mountaintop removal also attended, but they were outnumbered... Grant Crandall, an attorney for the United Mine Workers of America, suggested the cumulative effect of federal regulations of the coal industry is that too few permits are being granted and that even the current system has led to a "paralysis" that is having a "devastating impact on our Appalachian coal field communities." "Delay costs jobs, our members' jobs," Crandall said.

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