John Edwards 2008: What’s not to like

Since taking office in January 2001, the Bush administration has moved to loosen several key restrictions on mountaintop removal.

In its poll, the Appalachian Center found that 60 percent of West Virginians oppose Bush’s actions.

Earlier this year, the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign cited a 1999 Senate vote by Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., as one of the “Top Ten Reasons John Kerry is Wrong for West Virginia.”

In that Nov. 18, 1999, vote Kerry helped to defeat legislation proposed by Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., to overturn a decision by the late U.S. District Judge Charles H. Haden II to limit mountaintop removal.

Haden had ruled that a stream “buffer zone” rule prohibited valley fills in most waterways, allowing them only in smaller, ephemeral streams.

Byrd proposed to write into federal law an agreement among federal agencies to exempt fills from the buffer zone rule if they obtain Clean Water Act permits from the corps.

Kerry’s running mate, Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., voted in favor of Byrd’s legislation.

Charleston Gazette on Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition 7/14/04
http://www.ohvec.org/links/news/archive/2004/fair_use/07_14.html