The Bush administration is undercutting environmental laws with a rule encouraging mountaintop coal mining, critics told a Senate panel Thursday.
The rule is “one of the most significant and destructive changes to Clean Water Act protection in decades,” said Joan Mulhern, a lawyer for Earthjustice, an environmental advocacy law firm.
Mountaintop mining involves blasting away ridges to get at the coal below. The debris is moved into valleys and streams.
The Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers ensure compliance with the 1972 Clean Water Act by controlling dumping permits.
Issued last month, the Bush administration rule would eliminate a Corps of Engineers ban on putting mine and other waste in waterways. Instead, the corps would adopt the EPA’s standard, which does not include such a ban.
Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), who presided over the hearing before an Environment and Public Works subcommittee, said he would introduce legislation to clarify that dumping waste in waterways is not allowed. A similar measure has been introduced in the House.
