SALON

Monday, Mar 7, 2011 8:59 PM UTC

Rand Paul to EPA: Don’t protect Kentucky

The coal mining industry's favorite new senator thinks blowing up mountains should be easy

By

Topics: Rand Paul, Environment, How the World Works,

Rand Paul to EPA: Don't protect KentuckyRand Paul

If there was one form of disastrous pollution you would think everyone would readily agree the Environmental Protection Agency should regulate, it would be mountaintop removal coal mining. It’s hard to think of a modern industrial practice that does more damage than the one that blows up the top of mountains, fills up stream beds and valleys, and poisons the local water supply.

But today’s Republican Party disagrees. Last Thursday, the two Republican senators from Kentucky, Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul, introduced a bill aiming to restrict the EPA from clamping down on mountaintop removal.

The Hill reports:

“I think this is a good first step to reining in an out-of-control, unelected bureaucracy. I think the EPA has gone way beyond its mandated duty and is now at the point of stifling industry in our country,” Paul said Thursday.

The bill would give EPA a 60-day deadline to veto Clean Water Act permits issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, or else they will go forward.

Pretty clever. Those bureaucrats move pretty slow, you know, what with the time it takes to do environmental impact assessments and whatnot. They’ll never get their work done in 60 days or less. Brilliant!

The coal industry is upset at the EPA for quashing the huge Spruce No. 1 mine in West Virginia. Paul, who made some waves during his campaign for senator when he characterized the deaths of 29 coal miners at Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch mine as an example of the “accidents and unfortunate things that do happen no matter what the regulations are,” is exactly the kind of libertarian senator that most big polluters dream of. But the ironic, or ridiculous, part of his “good first step” statement is of course the fact that the action taken by the EPA’s “unelected bureaucracy” was the clear result of an election.

Bush’s EPA was instructed to lay off the coal mining industry. Obama’s EPA came in with a different mandate, as a consequence of a Democratic candidate winning a presidential election. What Rand Paul is really trying to do with his new law is overturn the will of the people! Where’s the outrage?

In related news, is it time to ban use of the word “overreach”? If it isn’t Wisconsin’s governor, Scott Walker, “overreaching” in his attack on public-sector collective bargaining rights, or the Wall Street Journal “overreaching” when it reported that Wisconsin’s Democratic senators were ready to give up, we now have Sen. McConnell declaring that “an overreaching Environmental Protection Agency in Washington is blocking new jobs for Kentuckians and Americans by waging a literal war on coal.”

Literally? I think McConnell may be guilty of some metaphorical overreach.

Andrew Leonard

Andrew Leonard is a staff writer at Salon. On Twitter, @koxinga21. More Andrew Leonard.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • A missing poster hangs on a tree outside the Cleveland home of Amanda Berry Wednesday. Berry and two other women, Michelle Knight and Gina DeJesus, made a daring escape this week after being held captive for more than a decade.
    Credit: AP/Tony Dejak

  • Elvis Rafael Rodriguez and Emir Yasser Yeje offer their best impression of  Eric B. & Rakim. On Thursday, New York prosecutors identified the pair as members of an international gang that robbed $45 million in a matter of hours by hacking into a database of prepaid debit cards and draining ATM machines around the world.
    Credit: AP

  • New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie walks to a podium during the groundbreaking ceremony for the Technology Enhanced Accelerated Learning Center at Essex County Newark Tech in Newark, N.J., Tuesday. Christie made less flattering headlines this week after undergoing a secret stomach surgery to curb his weight.
    Credit: AP/Julio Cortez

  • Workers stand outside the Tung Hai Sweater Ltd. factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Thursday after a fire broke out in its 11-story building. Eight people were killed in the blaze.
    Credit: AP/Ismail Ferdous

  • Workers rescue a woman trapped for 17 days in the rubble of a garment factory building in Saver, Bangladesh, Friday. The building's collapse was the worst industrial disaster in the country's history, killing more than 1,000 people.
    Credit: AP

  • Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford gives his victory speech Tuesday in Mt. Pleasant, S.C., after winning back his old congressional seat in the state's first district.
    Credit: AP/Rainier Ehrhardt

  • Jodi Arias reacts in Maricopa Country Superior Court Wednesday after being found guilty of first-degree murder in the gruesome killing of her one-time boyfriend, Travis Alexander. Arias has subsequently said she wants the death penalty, claiming she'd "prefer to die sooner than later."
    Credit: AP/The Arizona Republic/Rob Schumacher

  • Ariel Castro stands for his mug shot Thursday at the Cuyahoga County Corrections Center, where he is being held on $8 million bail. The former bus driver is accused of imprisoning three young women and beating them repeatedly over a period of 10 years.
    Credit: AP/Cuyahoga County

  • Charles Ramsey addresses the media Monday after helping rescue three women held captive in Cleveland for more than a decade. Ramsey's hero portraiture has been complicated by revelations of his own domestic violence record.
    Credit: AP/The Plain Dealer/Scott Shaw

  • Michael B. Donley, Secretary of the Air Force, testifies during a Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee hearing on Capitol Hill Wednesday. The military branch was rocked this week after its chief sexual assault prevention officer was charged with sexual battery.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 30 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

Rand Paul is a U.S. Senator from Kentucky.

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations