Bill aims to outlaw coal mined by removing mountaintops

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Half the coal burned by Progress Energy's and Duke Energy's power plants would become illegal in North Carolina under legislation proposed Tuesday by state Rep. Pricey Harrison.

The Guilford County Democrat wants to outlaw importation of coal that has been extracted by a controversial form of strip mining known as mountaintop removal. The process involves blowing up several hundred feet of mountaintop to expose embedded veins of coal.
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"Every time we turn on our lights, we're using energy derived from those destroyed mountains," Harrison said Tuesday at a news conference in Raleigh to discuss her proposal.
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Harrison said she was prompted to introduce legislation after recently seeing a documentary, "Mountain Top Removal," released this year by Pittsboro independent filmmaker Michael O'Connell. The documentary tracks two years of the life of a West Virginia family living at the edge of a mountaintop removal site.
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http://www.newsobserver.com/business/story/1087504.html

Good work Rep Harrison

Too late to save the mountains that I can see from the front of my house. Mountaintop removal miners are working this way, and will rip the tops off here before much longer. :-(

If the fill couldn't be dumped into the valley streams, the companies could no longer do mountain top removal.

you expect competence and a 'protect the citizens' attitude instead of 'assist the corporations' ? Such high expectations!

PS: You're right of course.

what will happen if/when 50% of their electricity becomes illegal.

Only outlaws will have electricity!