I was on the subway heading in to town when I read the headline.
"I don't bloody well believe it," I muttered to myself and anyone who could hear me. "The #$%^%^ Bush Administration." (Yes it's true. I swear. I'm Irish. Comes with the territory).
The headline, tucked nicely away on page A21 of Wednesday's New York Times read as follows: "Coal Mining Debris Rule is Approved: Late Change Eases Restrictions on Dumping in Streams and Valleys."
For those of you who maybe don't pay attention to this kind of thing (and I know it's hard given that there is so much out there to distract: Campbell Brown's ridiculous I-wanna-be-Keith-Olbermann tirade against Barack Obama for one, or Sarah Palin's if-you-could-put-it-in-a-bottle-you-could-sell-it extraordinary wit and charisma for another) what this means is that from here on out, the Coal Industry - King Coal - will not only be able to carry out the practice called "Mountain-top Removal," (whereby they literally rip the tops off mountains in order to get to the coal beneath), but will now be able to dump the debris torn from those mountains into the surrounding streams and valleys.
And apparently, at least according to the Bush Administration, this is a good thing. The Environmental Protection Agency Administrator, Stephen L. Johnson, has the gall to say that the rules have been adjusted in order to protect the fish, the wildlife and the streams. Who does he think he's kidding? Not the Sierra Club. Not the National Resources Defense Council. Not the governors of Kentucky and Tennessee both of whom advised against this rule, and not Appalachian Voices, an environmental organization based in North Carolina which, on Wednesday, launched an online campaign urging President-elect Obama to overturn this ruling (and end Mountain Top Removal), when he gets in to office.
This is not the first time the Bush Administration has tried to pull one over on the rest of us in the last days of his administration. Actor & Environmentalist, Robert Redford has already outlined on these pages how the Bush Administration, on the very day we voted him out of power, announced plans to lease, as Redford puts it, "huge swaths of majestic wilderness in eastern Utah for oil and gas extraction."
There are other rules that are being rushed through as well, rules that although they might not have anything to do with the environment, all have one thing in common. Industry first. People and country be damned. And let's be clear. Once these rules are enacted, they are difficult to overturn. Each rule that is in place before the new Administration takes office has to be replaced by another rule before it can be taken off the books, which starts off a whole new process, and which can take years to be determined. So. Many more years of damage and destruction, courtesy of the Bush Administration. As if they haven't done enough.
While we are all congratulating ourselves for the tremendous victory that is Barack Obama as our next President, breathing sighs of relief, exhaling, hugging, making Obama babies, The Bush Administration is doing what it does best. Screwing us.
Maybe, Campbell Brown, this is something to which you can devote one of your commentaries?