Bad Week for Big Coal

The New York Times' Green Inc. blog, citing a flurry of news stories around the country, called this "a tough week for coal."  In the words of Tom Zeller:  "The coal industry -- which suffers from an image problem to begin with -- has had a particularly rough few days.  Without additional interpretation, we present a selection of articles, published over just the last 48 hours, from around the Web."

News stories on the list include:

• Yet another company dropping plans to build a new coal-fired power plant in Montana
• Protesters chaining themselves to bulldozers at a mountaintop mining site in West Virginia
• Appalachian town suing a mining company for poisoning its drinking water
• Michigan's governor rejecting proposed new coal-fired power plants in the state
• Georgia joining the ranks of other states like Tennessee and North Carolina with state legislation opposing mountaintop-removed coal
• Kentucky utilities paying huge fines for air pollution from power plants

As these body blows to Big Coal land at the state level, a new presidential administration and majority Congress are moving to enact federal climate legislation.  This all adds up to what NRDC hopes will be the end of dirty coal.

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