Franken-Lies-And-the-Lying-Liars-Who-Tell

I know I joined him in renewing my commitment. Not too many people realize how much
celebrities can do to improve the environment. Remember how I'm a nut for statistics? Well,
not too many people realize this, but show biz celebrities make up just .000000001 percent of
the world's population, and yet consume nearly 37 percent of its resources. For example,
every day, seventeen acres of rain forest are consumed by Barbra Streisand alone.
After Bush's speech, determined to do my part, I wasted almost twenty minutes trying
to persuade my son to accept a Prius as a graduation gift, in place of the 280-horsepower
Infiniti G35 coupe I had promised him in a weak moment.
So I'm pulling my weight. I wish I could say the same for J. Steven Griles, the deputy
secretary of the interior. Instead of renewing his commitment, like the President told him to,
Griles has opened public lands to oil, gas, and mining interests, all while still receiving
money from his former employers in the oil, gas, and mining industries. Griles's appointment
has been a particular boon to a sector of the coal mining industry that is not afraid to think
big: the mountaintop removal sector.
You see, when you remove the top of a mountain, you can gain ready access to what
is inside, be it diamonds, molybdenum, or most commonly, bituminous (or "dirty") coal. The
thing is, a removed mountaintop doesn't just vanish. The top of the mountain has to go
somewhere. And that somewhere is usually a nearby valley.
Griles himself has had plenty of experience removing unnecessary mountaintops. As
an executive at United Company, he oversaw the Dal-Tex mine in West Virginia, which occasioned
one of the largest mountaintop removals since Krakatoa. The mine was not what
you would call a good neighbor. When miners detonated mountain ridges, filling in valleys
and burying streams with trees, rocks, and thirteen species of songbird, they also sent boulders
flying into local houses. As you can imagine, neighbors complained, not just about the
boulders, but also about the choking dust.
Griles's inconsiderate behavior did not end with the boulders or the asthma-inducing
debris. United Company set up huge coal-loading machines that ran twenty-four hours a day,
right next to homes.
For years, a number of regulations have interfered with the ability of mining companies
to remove mountaintops. For example, until recently, it's been illegal to dump the mountaintop
into a nearby stream or river. The Bush administration has changed all that, by rewrit-