Mountain Holler
State of Kentucky Funding Coal Propaganda
May 15th, 2008
I know I don't have much room to speak since I live in West Virginia and our government is not always the least corrupt, but Kentucky's funding of pro-MTR propaganda, as reported by the Lexington Herald-Leader is 100% outrageous. The taxpayers of Kentucky are giving the coal industry $400,000 every year. What could be worse? That money is being spent on "education"in public schools. Yes, the Kentucky government is giving money to the Kentucky Coal Association to put pro-mountaintop removal propaganda in pubic schools. Why would they do this? President of the Kentucky Coal Association Bill Caylor has the answer:
"The environmentalists throw out a lot of negative stuff, like kids who are suffering from asthma because they breathe particulate matter from living near a coal-fired power plant, or deaths caused on the roads by big coal trucks," Caylor said. "We're trying to counteract that."One might conjecture that a better way to counteract that "negative stuff" would be to stop killing children. At least he's not denying the harmful effects of coal.
A person would expect this from an industry mouthpiece. At least one with common sense would, not so with the Kentucky government.
That is not the sort of objective and balanced information the state intended to pay for, said William Bowker, director of fossil fuels and utility services at the Governor's Office of Energy Policy.Yes Bowker failed to "dig deep enough." Apparently he didn't even get to the part about who they were giving the $400,000 a year to.
"This coaleducation.org thing, I don't disagree that that's inappropriate. I'll have a talk with the group about that," Bowker said. "All that stuff on mountaintop removal will be removed. I guess I didn't dig deep enough."
It's not all bad. One person in the Kentucky Government was sense:
"It's appropriate to educate citizens on their sources of energy," said Tom FitzGerald, director of the Kentucky Resources Council. "But I don't think we should be spending the public's money on industry promotional campaigns that are thinly disguised as educational programs."And really, what can I say, this is West Virginia's Governor:
Clicking on the photo will clearly show that Gov. Manchin says to the DEP 'Thanks for promoting a "Healthy" environment' (Healthy really is in quotes)