It's all about you Doris. Only your path is right, only your religion, only your life, your money, only your sexuality. It's all about you Doris. You most certainly suffer from ME ME ME. Pray about it. Maybe your idol will bring you some humility and compassion.

Hey Doris, pay attention. I'm saying the comments about jobs at the expense of everything else, even the health and well being of others, is the typical "me me me" syndrome. You should know since you're eat up with it.

Yeah that's all we hear from you Bro Early. What about Me???? That is your slogan.

Its not really about technology, its about cost. You simply cannot mine this region as cheaply as out west.

Fire up your google earth and type in "Cordero Wyoming" (dont abbreviate WY). You get a whole bunch of 'pins' appearing southeast of Gillette WY, which are the locations of the Powder River Basin mines. This is flat grassland with coal anywhere between 6 and 60 feet below the surface. Mining is done by dragline, where topsoil is removed, coal dug out, and topsoil replaced. 'Mountaintop removal' without the mountain, if you will.

The rail lines in the Powder River basin were only built since the 1980s, rather than in the 1880s as is the case around Appalachia, so there is tremendous efficiency in rail network design when it comes to loading Wyoming coal. You will see loop tracks that hold an entire train, and some mines have 2, 3 or even 4 loading loop tracks. Entire trains load in less than 1 hour, and trains remain intact and aren't broken up or modified. Contrast that with Appalachia, where there is alot of 'loose car railroading' where topography limitations result in coal being loaded in smaller groups of railcars, and ultimately the railcars need to be switched around (at added cost) just to create a single train.

All of this adds up to a tremendous cost advantage for Wyoming coal, so much so that coal can be hauled (as its routinely done) from Wyoming to Massachusetts, 2200 miles, more cheaply than Appalachian coal can be transported from here to Massachusetts, 700 miles. Georgia Power's Plant Scherer (near Macon GA) is the the biggest power plant in the US that burns Wyoming coal, and that power plant is only located less than 300 miles from many Appalachian coal sources.

Appalachia's mountaintop removal process is a "hail mary pass" designed to cheapen local mining techniques, in an attempt to remain competitive with Wyoming sources. Unfortunately, the locals around here are being handed their hats, and many rank-and-file simply are not current with whats happening elsewhere in the world to know it.

Brother Early,

Although you might find it hard to believe, there is actually something we can agree on, and that is that mountain top removal is not the way to go.

Not only does it destroy the beauty of the mountians, but the side effects do much damage to the enviorment.

I also beileve mountian top removal is only used because it saves the coal companies money, and allows them to reduce the amount of labor, in lieu of other methods of mining.

I have absolutely nothing against coal miners, they are my kind of people. They work very hard and don' t take any crap. Neither am I a tree hugger or greenpeace activist.

However I don't believe decapitating mountains is the way to do it. Mountain top removal may be the easier more cost effective way to get at coal, most beneficial for the coal companies. The eyesores that are left are detrimental to the tourist economy of KY, as well as the residents, property values, noise from above ground blasting, etc.

I grew up in a large city and I enjoy taking drives with my wife over into KY, it truly is a beautiful state, with lots of history.

With all the technology available today there has to be a better way to harvest coal other than turning your state into a crater.

I have, like many, have seen this destruction up close. If one were to glance at a Google Earth image of Wise county or fly over in a plane a huge portion of it is grey from the mountain top removal. Bottom line is it's cheaper to blast the mountain away than it is to use conventional deep mining. I see all this talk of money to help find cleaner means of energy, why don't they inject some of that into deep mining projects to help save consumers money on their electric bill and at the same time save the beauty and prestige of our mountains. Kill two birds with one stone so-to-speak.

"...Angry Appalachian coal miners are refusing to vacation in Tennessee because they say one of that state’s political leaders wants to eliminate needed jobs by banning mountaintop removal.".... That is O.K. because it works both ways! But who wants to vacation in an area where it been blasted and stripe-mined. Not me and a million other tourist either. Tennesse is not eliminating the coal jobs; they are just running out of coal to mine. Atleast my grand kids "when they get here" will be able to see what a real mountain-top looks like, In the future! Thank you Sen. Lamar Alexander for standing up to this!

What will Tennessee do now without all those vacationing coal miners?

While energy is important, I think Sen. Alexander is right in his stand against mountaintop removal. I think that in years to come the descendents of the mine owners and the miners who participated in mountaintop removal will look back in shame and horror at the environmental devestation that their ancestors wrought upon the land.

Great to hear that Lamar Alexander is standing up to a practice that is so devastating to the land.

Wow, first time in a long time that Ive stumbled upon Lamar Alexander supporting an act I can agree with. Kudos sir.

Progress happens, and it eliminates many jobs every year. Thats a simple fact of life, and folks regroup and re-educate themselves to be productive members of society in another sector. But gald-durn it, them miners have a right to blast off the mountaintops! They need money!

For every ton of coal under an Appalachian mountain, there are thousands of tons of lower sulfur coal (better for the environment) out in Wyoming only 6 feet below grassland that can be mined without removing the tops of entire mountains.

Methinks some miners need retraining into a different profession.

They are wanting to perform drastic environmental surgery to mine an inferior product. Geesh, almost as bad a domestic autoworkers whining about jobs when their product just plain sucks.

ME ME ME ME ME

Alexander and Al Gore are joining up to start a double green project.