(From our executive director, Mary Anne Hitt)
With the presidential candidates in West Virginia last week, coal and mountaintop removal started getting lots of attention, and so did Appalachian Voices. A blog post that JW put together for our Front Porch Blog about Hillary Clinton’s comments on West Virginia Public Radio spread across the blogosphere like wildfire. It was cross-posted on Daily Kos, one of the most visited blogs, and was on the front page of Grist, a major online environmental magazine. Greenwire, the national wire service for environmental news, interviewed me for a story on the role of coal in the presidential election. That article and a few blog links are pasted below – I encourage you to explore them.

Also, last week we filed our legal challenge against the air permit for Duke Energy’s Cliffside plant – kudos to Scott and the legal committee of the board for your hard work on that, and to Joel at Fenton for the media outreach. Media coverage of that is also pasted below.

In other news, staff members were on 3 different radio interviews in the last few weeks: JW on Bob Kincaid’s show in West Virginia, Lenny on Pacifica Radio in California, and Tom and Mike on morning radio in Virginia. We are gearing up for MTR Week in Washington, with over 100 people from 19 states registered, and counting. The campaign to stop the Wise County plant continues to barrel along at breakneck speed (one article on that is pasted below). And I have pasted one more article below, written by someone who saw Scott on a panel at a conference in Oregon earlier this year. EVERYONE on our staff and board was part of making this possible, so thanks to all of you!

(click on the links below to see the original story)

Hillary Clinton on Mountaintop Removal Today
West Virginia, Mountain Drama
Trading off jobs and lives for the ‘economic necessity’ of coal
Clinton’s Mountaintop Removal Comments Spark Outrage
Appeals filed of Cliffside
Groups Fight Power Plant Permit
New Challenge filed to Duke’s Cliffside Project
Tax credits next front in battle over Duke Energy’s Cliffside unit
Virginia Law Requiring Use of Virginia Coal May Be Unconstitutional
The Rising Price of Coal