Unreal.
Paul believes mountaintop removal just needs a little rebranding. "I think they should name it something better," he says. "The top ends up flatter, but we're not talking about Mount Everest. We're talking about these little knobby hills that are everywhere out here. And I've seen the reclaimed lands. One of them is 800 acres, with a sports complex on it, elk roaming, covered in grass." Most people, he continues, "would say the land is of enhanced value, because now you can build on it."
Hat tip to RLMiller whose tweet today clued me in on this freak show. I hope I haven't stolen her thunder.
That quote is from a lengthy interview Paul did with Details magazine. Here's the full quote:
Rules, control—just what Rand Paul abhors most, what chafes him about the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the Fair Housing Act, the Americans With Disabilities Act, and about environmentalists taking aim at Appalachia's coal industry for a practice known as mountaintop removal. The process involves blasting off the tops of mountains to get at the coal seams inside, then filling stream valleys with the resulting rubble and debris. Scientists and environmentalists say its effects are devastating, that it buries feeder streams, razes ecosystems, leaves toxic sludge pits and decapitated, denuded forests in its wake. "Mountaintop-removal coal mining," Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the chief prosecuting attorney for the eco-watchdog group Riverkeeper, recently wrote, "is the greatest environmental tragedy ever to befall our nation."
Paul believes mountaintop removal just needs a little rebranding. "I think they should name it something better," he says. "The top ends up flatter, but we're not talking about Mount Everest. We're talking about these little knobby hills that are everywhere out here. And I've seen the reclaimed lands. One of them is 800 acres, with a sports complex on it, elk roaming, covered in grass." Most people, he continues, "would say the land is of enhanced value, because now you can build on it."
You've seen the photos of mountains denuded of everything from trees to wildlife (if you haven't click HERE.) Flora and fauna obliterated in the name of a dirty energy source that exacts not only environmental devastation during the mining but pollutes the air with sulfur compounds and spews climate-changing gases around the globe. For Rand Paul, these destroyed ecosystems, forever gone from our national repository, are an IMPROVEMENT over what was there before.
Give to Jack Conway's Act Blue fund if you can. How much more incentive do we need?
I'm just sayin'...