Just baby steps on mining reform

UPDATE: The New York Times weighs in, too. Read its Friday editorial: More Than Stopgaps for Appalachia.

Listening to Obama administration officials struggle to explain how their new "interagency action plan" is going to reduce the coal industry's harm to Appalachia's environment, we were reminded that the U.S. Office of Surface Mining is still without a director.

And it shows.

The administration is taking some commendable baby steps toward restoring the rule of environmental law in the eastern coalfields and seems to have a genuine desire to do the right thing, just not strong enough approaches to doing it.

Read the rest of this editorial from the Lexington Herald-Leader here.

See also: Obama Mountaintop Coal Mining Plan Disappoints Appalachian Advocates