Chicago Tribune, June 1, 2009
Controversial coal mining method gets Obama's OK Environmentalists decry 'mountaintop removal'
By Tom Hamburger and Peter Wallsten
WASHINGTON ¿ - With the election of Barack Obama, environmentalists expected to see the end of the "Appalachian apocalypse" -- their name for exposing coal deposits by blowing the tops off of whole mountains.
But in recent weeks, the Obama administration has quietly decided to open the way for at least two dozen more "mountaintop removal" projects.
The decision to clear a path for the controversial projects was never officially announced, but instead conveyed in a letter this month to a West Virginia congressman and coal ally, Democratic Rep. Nick Rahall. The letter said that the Environmental Protection Agency would not block 42 of 48 mine projects that it had reviewed so far, including some of the most controversial mountaintop mines.
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