The inspector general’s office of the Department of the Interior stated in a report issued Tuesday that the agency had failed to offer an adequate rationale for canceling an independent study of the health effects of mountaintop coal mining. There was no evidence that a formal review was undertaken before the study was ended, the IG report said.
But there was a clear reason for the move: DOI chief Ryan Zinke and a number of his top minions, like Douglas Domenech and Vincent DeVito, are tools of the fossil-fuel industry. They are doing all in their power to shelter the oil, gas, and coal business from both old and new regulations—even if this means damage to people’s health and the environment.
It was 10 months ago that the Trump regime put a stop to the $1 million National Academy of Sciences mountaintop mining study. The research had been initiated after the Department of Environmental Protection and Bureau for Public Health of West Virginia sought help in scrutinizing evidence of added illnesses and premature deaths in parts of Appalachia where surface mining is prevalent. Previous studies—like this one—had shown a higher mortality rate in such areas.
Zinke, whose tenure so far has been punctuated by a fat bag of anti-science decisions, also ended a study on the health, safety, and environmental effects of offshore oil and gas drilling. At the time, Andrew Rosenberg, director of the Center for Science and Democracy at Union of Concerned Scientists, said this in response:
“We can only assume that this action, and the similar halt they placed on a study of coal mines, comes at the behest of Secretary Zinke’s allies in the fossil fuel industry, who want to dump the costs of their operations on to the public. By refusing to listen to independent science, the secretary is abdicating his legal responsibility to protect our health and safety.”
This is no longer speculation. Jimmy Tobias at Pacific Standard magazine reported Monday that emails obtained via the Freedom of Information Act show that Katharine MacGregor, Interior’s deputy assistant secretary for land and minerals, “met well over 100 times with extractive industry groups or representatives between January of 2017 and January of 2018.” She subsequently made decisions that affected the companies she had met with. She made suspending the coal study a priority:
MacGregor's role in the study's cancellation is noteworthy for one principal reason: In the months leading up to the cancellation, her calendar shows that she had no fewer than six meetings with the most powerful mining players in the country. In both April and May of 2017, she met with the National Mining Association. In March and June, meanwhile, she met with Arch Coal, a long-time practitioner of mountaintop removal mining in Appalachia.
As has been the case at the Environmental Protection Agency, if scientists seem like they might get in the way of profits before people, they and their studies are shown the door. Ignoring data is a lot easier if you don’t allow anyone to present it in the first place.