Hillary Clinton Does the Waffle Dance Around Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining

The word “jobs” is a magic talisman for politicians. When they want to push a dubious policy, they promise that “jobs” will come of it, and rarely does anyone note that some jobs are not worth having.

West Virginia is having a primary soon, and Hillary Clinton, campaigning there, had the following to say about mountaintop removal mining, a kind of Extreme Coal Mining that does what it says–it removes the mountain to get at the coal. She seems to be okay with it:

I am concerned about it for all the reasons people state, but I think it’s a difficult question because of the conflict between the economic and environmental trade-off that you have here.

I’m not an expert. I don’t know enough to have an independent opinion, but I sure would like people who could be objective, understanding both the economic necessities and environmental damage, to come up with some approach that would enable us to retrieve the coal but would enable us to do it in a way that wouldn’t damage the living standards and the other important qualities associated with people living both under the mountaintop and people who are along the streams.

You know, maybe there is a way to recover those mountaintops once they have been stripped of the coal. You know, I think we’ve got to look at this from a practical perspective.

Meh. Grist does a good job taking this apart. Strip mining for coal in Appalachia was never even good enough to be called a devil’s bargain; the devil got everything, and still does. It’s comparable to burning down your house in order to get a “job” hauling the remains to a dumpster. At the end, Hillary grasps for a tedious old dodge: once the mining is done, we’ll restore the landscape. In my experience of such restoration, the only thing left is rubble and toxins, and the only thing you can grow is noxious weeds.

Link [Gristmill]

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