Selena Covers (For) Romney. Again.

From today's Tribune-Review:

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney rallied supporters in this bellwether state on Tuesday by chastising President Obama for policies that cripple America’s energy industry and the families and small businesses whose livelihoods depend on fuel producers.

“His vice president said coal is more dangerous than terrorists. Can you imagine that?” Romney told a cheering crowd of about 2,600 people in the village of Beallsville, where 70 miners from American Energy Corp.’s Century Mine joined him onstage. “This tells you precisely what he actually feels and what he’s done, and his policies over the last three-and-a-half years have put in place the very vision he had when he was running for office.”

What a silly thing to say, coal more dangerous than terrorists??  What was Joe thinking?

Except he didn't actually say that.  In fact, when you look at the context (which Trib conservative columnist Selena Zito failed to do here) you'll find something entirely different.

CBS did their homework and has a description of what Biden actually said:

Campaigning in rural coal country, Mitt Romney on Tuesday revived a controversial five-year-old comment from Vice President Joe Biden as evidence that the Obama administration is insufficiently committed to energy from coal.

In a 2007 interview on HBO's Real Time With Bill Maher, Biden, then a 2008 presidential candidate, was asked which is more likely to contribute to Americans' deaths - air pollution from coal, high-fructose corn syrup or a terrorist attack. Biden responded: "Air that has too much coal in it, corn syrup next, then a terrorist attack. But that is not in any way to diminish the fact that a terrorist attack is real. It is not an existential threat to bringing down the country, but it does have the capacity, still, to kill thousands of people. But hundreds of thousands of people die and their lives are shortened because of coal plants, coal-fired plants and because of corn syrup." [emphasis added.]

Addressing a crowd in Beallsville, Romney attacked President Obama's energy policies and added, "His vice president said coal is more dangerous than terrorists. Can you imagine that? This tells you precisely what he actually feels and what he's done and his policies over the last three and a half years have put in place the very vision he had when he was running for office."

See?  The question Biden was answering is about which causes more damage not which is more dangerous.

What's happening here is that Romney misquoted Biden and Zito (who should know better)- let him get away with it.   CBS had the time to check, why didn't she?  We've seen this a few times (here and here) and I am beginning to sense a pattern.  Aren't you?

Setting aside the corn syrup part - and only because it's not a part of Romney's misquote - we should then be asking ourselves, "Is Biden telling the truth?  Does coal pollution kill more people than terrorism?"

Um, yea.  Take a look at this 2004 study from the Clean Air Task Force.  From the summary:

Fine particle pollution from U.S. power plants cuts short the lives of nearly 24,000 people each year, including 2800 from lung cancer.

So Romney misquoted and Zito failed to correct him.

This is how the Trib will be covering the Romney campaign.  Get used to it.

URGENT ACTION ITEM: New Battle of Blair Mountain

A group of miners display one of the bombs dropped on them
Via Wikipedia:

The Battle of Blair Mountain was one of the biggest civil uprisings in the United States history and the largest armed insurrection since the American Civil War. For five days in late August and early September 1921, in Logan County, West Virginia, between 10,000 and 15,000 coal miners confronted an army of police and strikebreakers backed by coal operators during a struggle by the miners to unionize the southwestern West Virginia coalfields. Their struggle ended only after approximately one million rounds were fired,[2] and the United States Army intervened by presidential order.

Now, mountain top removal mining is about to decimate the site of this historic battle. Hundreds of marchers -- including Pittsburgh Sierra Club's Randy Francisco -- are retracing the steps of the miners to stop Blair Mountain from "becoming just another barren, flat-topped strip mine." According to Friends of Blair Mountain, "The March on Blair Mountain is a unifying rally involving labor unions, environmental organizations, scholars, artists, and other citizens and groups."

In 1921, the miners were stopped by private planes that "were hired to drop homemade bombs on the miners" and by "Army bombers from Maryland were also used for aerial surveillance, a rare example of Air Power being used by the federal government against US citizens." In 2011, corporations and the government are still in cahoots, but their methods are more subtle (via Pink Coat Communications):

Local authorities, "encouraged" by mining companies, have routed the peaceful marchers out of their campgrounds. For their safety marchers now have to camp miles and miles away forcing organizers to shuttle folks back and forth. With gas at nearly $4 a gallon this could kill the march.

The marchers are in urgent need of your help to continue their efforts:

YOU CAN HELP! Donate to the marchers at http://marchonblairmountain.org/ (click on the Appalachia rising paypal button) or at directly at Appalachia Rising's paypal site

They only need about $1500 to complete the march, but without it, their effort cannot continue safely! They are in and out of cell phone range and only sporadically able to post information so this has not hit the press yet. Its important that we help them now though as they are in imminent danger of being forced to quit.

UPDATE: Latest update @ The Pittsburgh Seam

The P-G's "Mapping mortality" Series: A must read!

Hopefully, you're all reading the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's "Mapping mortality" series. It explores how our region's high level of industrialization and reliance on burning coal coupled with our geography has led to higher than normal levels of cancer and heart and respiratory problems than one would expect to see (yes, it factors in this areas higher level of cigarette smoking).

You can find an index of this week's article, photos and videos here.

You can see how they actually mapped out incidence of disease vs. locations of refineries/plants/etc. here.

It's literally a matter of life and death.

Want to help?



Here's PennFuture's Breathe Easy, Stay Healthy campaign.

Here's the Sierra Club's petition to stop the Wellington coal plant.
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Pack the Room!

Via Randy Francisco (Beyond Coal Campaign, Sierra Club):

The EPA is holding a public hearing in Pittsburgh on its plan to create new standards to protect our health from toxic coal ash, the carcinogenic byproduct containing mercury, arsenic, and lead, that is produced when coal is burned to produce electricity.

But Dirty Coal is pulling out all the stops to weaken the EPA's proposal -- claiming that this toxic coal waste should be regulated the same way as household trash.

Help us pack the room at the EPA hearing in Pittsburgh to show them that Americans demand strong standards to protect communities from toxic coal ash.

Here are the details:

DATE: Tuesday, September 21st
TIME: Morning session from 10am to 12pm, afternoon session from 1pm to 5pm, evening session from 6:30pm to 9pm or later.
WHERE: Omni Hotel, 530 William Penn Place, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15219 (map).
CONTACT: Randy Francisco at randy.francisco@sierraclub.org or (412) 802-6161 with any questions, or if you are looking for a carpool, a bus, or can't make it but still want to get involved.
RSVP: http://action.sierraclub.org/coalash_pittsburgh

Act to Stop New Waste Coal Plants in PA

Via Randy Francisco and PA Sierra Club:

Two proposed waste coal plants in Pennsylvania should have their permits invalidated.

Tell PA Department of Environmental Protection (PA DEP) Secretary Hanger to pull their permits!

Robinson Power Company allowed construction at its Beech Hollow Plant to lapse for over 1.5 years, and as a result, Secretary Hanger deemed its air permit invalid. We are pleased that the PA DEP denied the air permit that would have allowed Beech Hollow Plant to emit 1,701,314 tons of global warming pollution every year.

No construction has taken place over 1.5 years at two other proposed waste coal plants. Both the proposed River Hill plant in Centre County and the Wellington Plant in Greene County should be held to the same standards.

Tell DEP Secretary John Hanger it's time to pull these permits too.

These two proposed waste coal plants would emit 4,604,574 tons of global warming pollution every year, along with harmful levels of soot and smog pollution, which can worsen asthma and cause other respiratory illnesses. The denial of these permits would also allow Pennsylvania to begin to focus more attention on the development of clean renewable energy sources, like solar and wind that can secure our energy future and create more jobs for Pennsylvanians.

Take action to protect Pennsylvanians from the pollution these plants would spew.

We hope the PA DEP puts an end to these dirty coal proposals and moves beyond the use of coal by expanding the use of renewable sources like wind and solar energy.

"Clean" Coal: Digging fresh graves and digging up old ones

Just watch:

Shouldn't Mark Critz pull this ad?

...In light of recent events.

I saw it running today during WTAE's 6:00 PM newscast and Sue Kerr saw it on KDKA News around 6:15 PM.


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Massey Energy: Hundreds of Safety Violations; Thousands of Environmental Violations

Even their logo looks hellish.
Most of you have already heard that a devastating blast at the Upper Big Branch coal mine in West Virginia has killed 25 workers with 4 workers still missing.

It's the worst U.S. mining disaster since 1984.

The mine is owned by Massey Energy and is run by its subsidiary Performance Coal Company which according to an AP article in the Post-Gazette has "a history of violations for not properly ventilating highly combustible methane gas."

That article further states:

In the past year, federal inspectors fined the company more than $382,000 for repeated serious violations involving its ventilation plan and equipment at Upper Big Branch. The violations also cover failing to follow the plan, allowing combustible coal dust to pile up, and having improper firefighting equipment.

The New York Times has more:

Federal records indicate that the Upper Big Branch mine has recorded an injury rate worse than the national average for similar operations for at least six of the past 10 years. The records also show that the mine had 458 violations in 2009, with a total of $897,325 in safety penalties assessed against it last year. It has paid $168,393 in safety penalties.

“Massey’s commitment to safety has long been questioned in the coalfields,” said Tony Oppegard, a lawyer and mine safety advocate from Kentucky.

Those concerns, he said, were heightened in 2006 when an internal memo written by Mr. Blankenship became public. In the memo, Mr. Blankenship instructed the company’s underground mine superintendents to place coal production first.

“This memo is necessary only because we seem not to understand that the coal pays the bills,” he wrote.

With that kind of attitude on worker safety, it shouldn't be at all surprising that Massey and company CEO Don Blankenship are equally cavalier with the public's safety.

According to Wikipedia:

In early 2008, the company agreed to a $20 million settlement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency‎ (EPA) to resolve thousands of violations of the Clean Water Act for routinely polluting waterways in Kentucky and West Virginia with coal slurry and wastewater. Although this was the largest Clean Water Act settlement, the violations were estimated to have fines on the order of $2.4 billion. Over 700 miles of rivers and streams in the coalfields have been buried by the waste rock left over from mountaintop removal, a method of strip mining coal which requires the blowing up of mountain tops, removing from 500 to 800 feet (240 m) of mountaintop in the process. This method of coal mining has created some of the worst environmental disasters in the Mississippi area in regards to the poisoning of waterways, the flooding of local communities, and the destruction of the biodiversity of the Appalachian Mountains in West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee.

In October 2000, a Massey Energy subsidiary in Martin County, Kentucky accidentally released 306 million gallons of coal slurry waste from an impoundment into two mountain streams, Coldwater Creek and Wolf Creek (see photo right). The Martin County sludge spill was called the worst ever environmental disaster in the southeastern United States by the EPA. The spill smothered all aquatic life in the streams and left residents with contaminated drinking water. Cleanup costs for the spill were approximately $50 million.

Blankenship has also personally made it known that business interests should come before any environmental considerations (via SourceWatch):

At a November 2008 meeting of the Tug Valley Mining Institute in West Virginia, Don Blankenship described environmental groups, along with Al Gore, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid, as "Totally wrong. Nonsense. Absolutely crazy." He referred to reporters at the Charleston Gazette, a paper that has published numerous articles about the environmental effects of coal, as "communists" and "atheists." He also argued that the international scope of greenhouse gas emissions makes it futile to reduce carbon emissions in the U.S., saying, "Its nonsensical, its idiotic... If Pelosi thinks that decreasing CO2 in this country is going to save the polar bears, she’s crazy. If CO2 emissions are going to kill the polar bears, it’s going to happen. What we do here [in the US] is not going to [do] it." Blankenship also declared that business interests should come before environmental issues, and he questioned the ability of the general public to understand anything beyond simple environmental concepts.

And, if all that wasn't bad enough, Blankenship also waged "a multi-million dollar advertising campaign...to elect a West Virginia Supreme Court judge to preside over cases his company had before the court may push the U.S. Supreme Court to act."

Via ABC News:

Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens Tuesday called the case one of the most "extreme" of its kind that the high court has ever considered. The situation fit Justice Potter Stuart's infamous definition of obscenity, Stevens said, "I know it when I see it."

Here's Coal Boss Don Blankenship roughing up an ABC reporter in 2008:



Our condolences to the families of the workers killed in the blast, as well as all those harmed by Massey.
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Battling Polluting Waste Coal Plants In Western PA

There's a proposed coal waste power plant to be built just west of our area. These types of plants produce fly ash -- fly ash which will add to our already particulate-polluted air.

A new website has been created over the concerns raised by this proposed plant:

http://www.wehavenotbeguntofight.org/
The site includes information on public meetings about the plant.

Give it a whirl!
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TODAY: Rally for Clean Energy, Not Coal

Sorry for posting this so late, but if you happen to be downtown today:

Rally for Clean Energy, Not Coal
Thursday at 12 p.m.
6th Avenue & William Penn Place, Pittsburgh PA

From MoveOn:

Will Arlen Specter stand up for the Clean Air Act?

The House passed an energy bill which would roll back a key provision of the Clean Air Act that limits global-warming pollution from dirty coal plants.¹

Now it's the Senate's turn to write an energy bill, and we've got to stop them from making the same mistake.

So MoveOn members are gathering in Pittsburgh on Thursday at 12 p.m. to call on Sen. Specter to save the Clean Air Act and switch America to a clean energy economy.

Under President Obama, the Environmental Protection Agency has begun to take steps towards cracking down on global-warming pollution from coal plants and oil refineries.

But oil and coal lobbyists quietly snuck a provision into the House energy bill that would roll back the Clean Air Act and stop Obama's EPA from acting—so old, dirty coal plants will be let off the hook for their pollution.²

Even worse, as many as 100 new coal plants could be built in communities across the country—so instead of creating millions of new, clean energy jobs, we'll be stuck with dirty coal power for another generation.³

1. "Under House energy bill, coal won't be going away," Los Angeles Times, June 22, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51521&id=16610-1367448-jjEnQDx&t=7

"Big Coal Using Climate Change Bill To Roll Back Clean Air Act," The Huffington Post, June 18, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51542&id=16610-1367448-jjEnQDx&t=8

"Waxman-Markey Strips EPA of Clean Air Act Authority to Fight Global Warming," Friends of the Earth, June 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51541&id=16610-1367448-jjEnQDx&t=9

2. "Climate endangerment finding clears White House review," The New York Times, April 14, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51624&id=16610-1367448-jjEnQDx&t=10

"Climate change legislation now faces senate heat," Albany Times Union, July 12, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51623&id=16610-1367448-jjEnQDx&t=11

3. Memo on Clean Air Act authority, Pawa Law, July 2, 2009 [PDF]
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51620&id=16610-1367448-jjEnQDx&t=12

"green coal"

Gingrich adds new term to coal industry’s propaganda lexicon: ‘green coal.’

Hahahahahahahahahaha

[sob]

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