Public Justice’s Jim Hecker Testifies in Support of Proposed Stream Pollution Rule
Public Justice Environmental Enforcement Project Director Jim Hecker told a Senate committee yesterday that current federal rules governing stream pollution due to mountaintop removal mining are outdated and must be replaced by rules that “incorporate the best available science” and would successfully prevent “serious, persistent and unmitigated environmental harm.”
In testimony before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, Hecker used examples from his decades of fighting mining pollution in the courts in support of the Department of the Interior Office of Surface Mining’s first update to the rules governing stream pollution related to mining in over 30 years. Testifying alongside Hecker were representatives from the Office of Surface Mining, the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, and the coal industry.
Video of the full hearing is available here. Hecker’s statement begins in the 45th minute of the video.