Ablogination

With environmental cleanliness being a major concern for American Democrats and even some Republicans, one has to wonder if Hillary Clinton is on top of such issues. Turns out she’s very much on the wrong side of environmental protection.

Recently, as our friends at WhitesCreek brought to our attention, Hillary Clinton was in West Virginia where she was interviewed by Beth Vorhees of West Virginia Public Broadcasting.

Appalachian Voices Front Porch Blog brings us the lowdown on Hillary’s disgracefully ignorant stance on the tragedy of environmentally devastating mountain top removal mining or MTR. In the interview, Clinton shocked even some of her most ardent supporters with her obvious ignorance on the subject and her blatant unwillingness to put environment before business.

While stammering in Bush like fashion when asked questions she’s not prepared for, Hillary wrongly injected “economy” into the issue when the fact is, MTR has cost many jobs in the mining industry as automation replaces miners. Coal mining jobs are at an all time low.

MTR is one of the worst Eco-disasters America is facing particularly in the Southern states.
As the I Love Mountains organization teaches us, MTR poisons our water supplies, kills and displaces wildlife, and scars the beauty of our natural landscape. All for the greed of a handful of people.

Unfortunately, there is little information on the cumulative impacts of mountaintop removal because the federal agencies that are charged with regulating coal mining have refused to track the overall extent and impacts of mountaintop removal. The one attempt at acomprehensive analysis of MTR by government agencies was presented in a multi-agency Environmental Impact Statement that was completed in 2003. This effort was initiated in the late 90s, but the focus of the EIS was revised after the White House changed hands in 2001. According to the Charleston Gazette:

“When it formally kicked off the project in February 1999, the EPA said the goal was “to consider developing agency policies … to minimize, to the maximum extent practicable the adverse environmental effects” of mountaintop removal. By October 2001, then-Deputy Interior Secretary Steven J. Griles, a former mining industry lobbyist, had ordered the project refocused toward “centralizing and streamlining coal mine permitting.”

Cindy Tibbot, a FWS biologist involved in the EIS process, was one of many agency scientists who expressed outrage about Griles’ directive, stating in an internal memo:

“It’s hard to stay quiet about this when I really believe we’re doing the public and the heart of the Clean Water Act a great disservice.”

Here is an excerpt of the interview. Hillary Clinton, having sat on “environmentally focused committees", shows an ignorance equaled only by the GOP…

I am concerned about it for all the reasons people state, but I think its a difficult question because of the conflict between the economic and environmental trade-off that you have here. I’m not an expert. I don’t know enough to have an independent opinion, but I sure would like people who could be objective, understanding both the economic necessities and environmental damage to come up with some approach that would enable us to retrieve the coal but would enable us to do it in a way that wouldn’t damage the living standards and the other important qualities associated with people living both under the mountaintop and people who are along the streams. You know, maybe there is a way to recover those mountaintops once they have been stripped of the coal. You know, I think we’ve got to look at this from a practical perspective.

1) Why doesn’t Hillary Clinton have enough knowledge to even form an opinion? She’s sat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

2) Why doesn’t Hillary know that local economies have been harmed by MTR, not helped?

3) Recover Mountain tops??
Is she out of her fucking mind? What kind of inept, George Bushian statement is that?! She has sat through hearing after hearing on this issue. Is she outright lying? How could she be so ignorant unless it’s willful and invoked so as not to lose coal industry money?

Environment? We don’t need no stinking environment.

Now, let’s really look into Hillary Clinton’s environmental voting record.
In 2003, Hillary Clinton voted against the Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003. A miserably foolish and environmentally unsound vote.
A few positive votes under party pressure and lots of NVs shows Hillary Clinton to be grotesquely apathetic where environmental issues are concerned. As are virtually all corporate whores.

Also, as a point of reference, Hillary Clinton along with the Spineless Senate body, voted to confirm former and now disgraced Republican EPA Chief Christine Whitman. Whitman resigned from Bushit’s cabinet after being found guilty of endangering 9/11 emergency personnel and New Yorkers at large…

In February 2006, a federal judge found Whitman guilty of making “‘misleading statements of safety’ about the air quality near the World Trade Center in the days after the Sept. 11 attack.” The judge further found that Whitman “may have put the public in danger,” according to the New York Times (Julia Preston, “Public Misled on Air Quality After 9/11 Attack, Judge Says,” February 3, 2006).

“The allegations in this case of Whitman’s reassuring and misleading statements of safety after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks are without question conscience-shocking,” said Judge Deborah A. Batts. As early as September 13, 2001, the EPA put out press releases declaring “no significant levels” of asbestos dust, when agency officials knew there were significant hazardous emissions. Judge Batts’ ruling allowed a 2004 class action lawsuit against Whitman and other EPA officials and the entire agency, which was filed on behalf of residents and schoolchildren from downtown Manhattan and Brooklyn, to go forward.

Barack Obama however, has made his view clear. I guess we should be happy that at least one of the Democratic contenders has a stance on the issue at all.

Get out of the race, Hillary. We’re not voting for you. You are one of them.