Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, Colstrip, Montana, is home to the second largest coal plant west of the Mississippi. One boxcar-full of coal is burned every 5 minutes. The burning coal creates sodium, thallium, mercury, boron, aluminum, and arsenic, which is pumped out of the factory and into the air. The chemicals that are pumped into the air are caught in the factory's scrubbers and then dumped with coal ash into giant settling ponds. These ponds are shallow artificial lakes of concentrated toxicity which leach this poison into wells and aquifers. The sludge flows into the surrounding towns and countryside, bubbling up against foundations and floorings, cracking the floor in Colstrip's local grocery store. Ranchers in eastern Montana are now suing the plant for damages; noxious water, they cite, is the only liquid that fill their wells and stock ponds. James Jansen, a renowned climate scientist, says Colstrip itself will cause the extinction of 400 species. But Colstrip burns on. Why? Because we have no national energy plan, and because there are currently no Federal enforceable regulations specific to coal ash. This lack of federally enforceable safeguards is exactly what led to the disaster in Tennessee, where a dam holding more than 1 billion gallons of toxic coal ash failed. The TVA disaster destroyed 300 acres, dozens of homes, killed fish and other wildlife, and poisoned the Emory and Clinch Rivers.…”