This week the group said it was behind the Tennessee Scenic Vistas Protection Act, which would prohibit the alteration or removal of ridgelines above 2000 feet in elevation for surface coal mining.
Underground mining and surface mines with current permits would not be affected by the regulation.
Allowing MTR, the TCU said, would allow Tennessee to “become the first state in America to permit a communist Chinese company to destroy our mountains”
“The Tennessee Conservative Union is 100 per cent pro-coal but our organization does not support destroying our mountain heritage,” chairman Lloyd Daugherty said.
“Mountaintop removal mining kills jobs because it takes fewer workers to blow up a mountain.”
The group has taken out an advertisement to promote its position and in it refers to a May 2012 article in MarketWatch which indicated China-based Guizhou Gouchuang Energy Holdings had raised $616 million in a private placement that it would use to obtain and develop Tennessee producer Triple H Coal and that Guizhou Gouchuang would become the first Chinese company to invest in coal in America.
TCU also quotes a Shenhua Group executive in its ad who said the state’s coal operations were attracting significant interest in China as more looked to the US for coal.
“[E]very Tennessean, regardless of political affiliation, should be appalled by the idea of allowing the red Chinese to destroy the very mountains crossed by Daniel Boone,” Daugherty said.
“We don’t have to hate coal and we don’t have to hate coal mining to want to protect our mountains.
“We just want Tennessee to be the first state to say ‘We’re going to mine coal and protect our mountaintops at the same time’.”
The Tennessee General Assembly is set to vote on the act on March 20.
While legislators ponder the issue, Daugherty urged others to speak up.
“We are calling on elected officials of both parties to stand up for Tennessee’s mountains and against the exploitation of our resources by a communist country,” he said.
“Tennessee is a proud red state but the Tennessee Conservative Union is not willing to go that red.”
