Panel Axes Mining Bill

By Andy Sher, Chattanooga Times/Free Press, Tenn.

Apr. 3–NASHVILLE — A key House subcommittee on Wednesday killed legislation that would ban “mountaintop removal” coal mining in Tennessee, but proponents of the measure vowed to fight on in the Senate, and Gov. Phil Bredesen said he may support the idea next year.

The House Environment Subcommittee voted 5-3 against the bill, which sought to ban mining of coal above 2,000 feet if it would affect a ridge line or occur within 100 feet of a stream.

“Tourists will not want to visit Tennessee if our mountaintops have been blasted away,” Rep. Mike McDonald, D-Portland, the bill’s sponsor, told subcommittee members. “Mountaintop removal will devastate tourism in the Cumberland Mountain region.”

Rep. Bill Baird, R-Jacksboro, who is running for mayor of Campbell County, Tenn., where coal mining is a major economic force, opposed the bill.

“Coal mining is part of our heritage,” he said. “This bill will have a big economic impact on those five counties.”

Rep. Baird said the bill would reduce severance taxes that help his district pay for services ranging from roads to education.

The meeting was expected to be the committee’s final one this session.

In other action, the panel with little debate sent to the full House Conservation and Environment Committee a bill that would restrict the ability to “harvest” sandstone and limestone and other building or garden rock from state-owned and privately owned property.

That measure, also sponsored by Rep. McDonald, would require holders of mineral rights to either have a written agreement with property owners or else file a bond with the state guaranteeing they would restore the property.

Would-be rock miners on the Cumberland Plateau have sued a Sequatchie County landowner and developer for access to his property after he blocked roads into it.

The state is involved in legal efforts to block rock harvesters from coming into state parks. Workers for a Florida company, officials say, allegedly tore up 75 to 100 yards of the state-owned Cumberland Trail in the Cumberland Trail State Park near Soddy-Daisy.

With regard to the coal mining bill, however, the House subcommittee took a dimmer view.

“We’ve got to respect private property rights,” Rep. Joe McCord, R-Maryville, said.

Rep. McDonald said he tried to compromise by adding bill language that would allow mining above 2,000 feet so long as it would not destroy the mountaintop.

Later, the sponsor of the Senate version of the bill, Sen. Raymond Finney, R-Maryville, and Sen. Doug Jackson, D-Dickson, argued with Senate Environment, Conservation and Tourism Committee Chairman Tommy Kilby, D-Wartburg.

Also criticizing the bill was Sen. Dewayne Bunch, R-Cleveland. He maintained he was undecided on the issue, but he repeatedly raised questions about property rights and charged the bill amounted to an unconstitutional “taking” that would rob the value of mineral rights’ owners.

But senators voted to bring the bill up for consideration next week.

Gov. Bredesen later said he thought a legal opinion from Tennessee Attorney General Robert Cooper found that proposed state action would be preempted by federal law. But the bill was reworked and a subsequent legal opinion found it would not run afoul of federal surface mining regulations.

“If there is a way of doing that and a way that is not an illegitimate taking and is consistent with federal law I’d like to explore that,” said Gov. Bredesen, noting he has put considerable resources into buying land and purchasing easements to conserve parts of the Cumberland Plateau.

“But it sounds to me from this that it may be dead for this year. But that’s something I certainly would have interest in picking up.”

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