Save protections from dirty coal

The House of Representatives will soon vote on H.R. 3409, the Stop the War on Coal Act of 2012.

This bill repeals major controls on pollution and protections for public health and property across several landmark federal laws including the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.

H.R. 3409 also prevents the Environmental Protection Agency from working on protections for public health, private property, clean air, and clean water. There’s more information below.

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Details on H.R. 3409

In what appears to be an election year gambit, leadership of the House of Representatives is moving forward on legislation that all but surrenders any pretense that coal can be mined or burned cleanly and safely. H.R. 3409 contains five titles, each of which attacks the statutory protections for communities, citizens, and property owners who neighbor coal mines and coal power plants. The bill would dismantle key provisions from over 40 years of federal landmark environmental laws.

Title I
Guts the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act by constraining the Office of Surface Mining from adopting any regulations that might “adversely impact employment in coal mines,” “cause reduction in revenue received by the Federal Government or any State, tribal or local government,” “reduce the amount of coal available for domestic consumption or for export,” or “expose the United States to liability for taking the value of privately owned coal through regulation.”

These provisions make coal industry profits, coal production and coal industry jobs higher priorities than public health, clean water, clean air, and private property adversely impacted by coal mining, overriding public interests in the financial interests of giant coal companies and coal exporters.

Title II
Removes greenhouse gas pollution from the Clean Air Act: “The Administrator [of EPA] may not...promulgate any regulation concerning, take action relating to, or take into consideration the emission of a green house gas to address climate change.”

It further codifies in law: “The definition of the term ‘air pollutant’ in section 302(g) does not include a greenhouse gas.”

Title III
After years of study documenting the costly health and economic costs of coal combustion air pollution, the bill would subject proposed rules implementing decades old provisions of the Clean Air Act to old, grandfathered coal plants and new coal plants to yet more studies and delayed implementation.

Title IV
Kills an EPA proposal to shut down coal ash sites that are sending toxins like boron, and carcinogenic trace metals into neighbors’ drinking water and livestock wells, as well as protecting life and property from dangerous impoundments.

Title V
Prevents the EPA from setting water quality standards to protect public health unless states, often influenced by huge energy interests, agree.

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