Byrds Words Rock the Coalfield Status Quo

In summer 2009, OVEC volunteer-members and staff gave some members of Senator Byrds staff a tour of communities affected by mountaintop removal.

Byrds staff visited with people in Prenter and Bob White in Boone County, folks from the now-nonexistent community of Mud in Lincoln County, and people in Mingo County who experienced mountaintop-removal-related flooding in spring 2009.

In Raleigh County, they met with Bo Webb and Ed Wiley to take a look around Marsh Fork Elementary School, where a prep plant, coal sludge dam and mountaintop removal operation loom over the school.

Byrds staff also met with people who support mountaintop removal. They were obviously moved by what they saw and heard from our folks on the coalfields tour. Still, months went by, and we werent sure what, if anything would be the outcome of the visit. In the meantime, people concerned about what mountaintop removal is doing to our water, communities and future continued to contact Senator Byrd.

After the failed Oct. 13 Army Corps of Engineers public hearing, where threats and acts of aggression by a pro-strip-mining mob kept many people from making their public comments, people stepped up their contact with Byrds office.

Senator Byrd was obviously listening and still contemplating the summer tour, because, on December 3, he issued a statement titled "Coal Must Embrace the Future."

The statement flummoxed Governor Manchin and assorted other coal-hitched legislators. Media outlets near and far ran stories about the statement.

The headline in Politico, the largest circulation political newspaper in D.C., a must-read for decision makers and their staffs, pretty much summed things up: "Byrds coal comments rock W.Va."

Some excerpts from what Politico reporter Alex Isenstadt wrote:

In an early December op-ed piece released by his office Byrd argued that resistance to constraints on mountaintop-removal coal mining and a failure to acknowledge that "the truth is that some form of climate legislation will likely become public policy" represent the real threat to the future of coal.

Change has been a constant throughout the history of our coal industry," Byrd said in the 1,161-word statement. "West Virginians can choose to anticipate change and adapt to it or resist and be overrun by it. One thing is clear: The time has arrived for the people of the Mountain State to think long and hard about which course they want to choose."

"To me, it was quite amazing. It was the first time that he had been at all critical of the coal industry," said Ken Hechler, a veteran West Virginia Democratic officeholder who served as congressman from 1959 to 1977. "It was truly unexpected."

(Byrd) pointedly criticized coal industry leaders and others for "stoking fear" over the EPAs efforts. And he excoriated a request from the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce for the congressional delegation to withhold their votes for health care reform until the Obama administration and Congress backed off its "war on coal/energy."

"I believe that the notion of holding the health care of over 300 million Americans hostage in exchange for a handful of coal permits is beyond foolish; it is morally indefensible," Byrd said.

Read the entire Politico article here: tinyurl.com/PoliMTR.

Read Senator Byrds full statement here: tinyurl.com/ByrdMTR.