E.P.A. Decides Against Coal Industry

In a major environmental decision, the Environmental Protection Agency has vetoed the largest mountaintop removal mining permit in the history of West Virginia. The move is part of an Obama administration crackdown aimed at reducing the effects of mountaintop removal coal-mining on the environment and on coalfield communities in Appalachian—impacts that scientists are increasingly finding to be pervasive and irreversible…EPA officials this morning were alerting West Virginia’s congressional delegation to their action, and undoubtedly preparing for a huge backlash from the mining industry and its friends among coalfield political leaders.