On King Coal

Governor Beshear said in is recent State of the State address that he would take on the EPA I've got news for you, Governor Beshear. I like clean air and water. You want to take on the EPA? Guess what? I have every right to write in someone's name on the ballot in May and November. I like former Mayor Jerry Abramson, a long time friend of the family.

However, Governor, if you think defending coal is the answer, when it obviously is not, there is a problem. Coal is not a clean source of power. Mountaintops are being removed as this weekend's protests and rallies have shown.

What is wrong with the Commowealth of Kentucky? I'm getting upset with leadership from my own party.

Hell, what is wrong with the state in general?

Look at State Rep. Brandon Smith's idea:

Kentucky should be a “sanctuary state” for the coal industry, free from “the overreaching regulatory power” of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, according to a measure expected to get a Senate committee vote Thursday.

Senate Natural Resources and Energy Chairman Brandon Smith, R-Hazard, said he got the idea for Senate Joint Resolution 99 after hearing about “sanctuary cities” declaring themselves exempt from federal immigration law.

If cities can ignore federal law to protect illegal immigrants, Smith said Wednesday, then why can’t Kentucky do it for coal companies?[...]

Smith and his wife were managers at Perry Oil Co. in Hazard in 2008, around the time the company entered a consent agreement with the EPA. The EPA blamed the company for 7,000 gallons of oil poured into an unnamed tributary of Lick Creek in Laurel County. The company agreed to pay a $14,595 fine.

Smith said he since has left the company and was unaware of the consent agreement. That isn’t what turned him against the EPA, the senator said. Rather, under President Barack Obama, the once-friendly EPA has become more adversarial, Smith said.[...]

Environmentalists say they’re unhappy that Gov. Steve Beshear and the General Assembly are attacking the EPA for enforcing environmental laws, some of which, they said, were neglected under previous presidents. Fourteen of them occupied Beshear’s outer office last weekend, and hundreds more rallied Monday on the Capitol steps.

The Beshear administration has joined the Kentucky Coal Association’s lawsuit against the EPA over water pollution enforcement. In this month’s State of the Commonwealth address, Beshear won thunderous applause from lawmakers by demanding that EPA regulators “get off our backs.”

That's because the Bush administration was lax in regulating companies in violation ofthe law.