Kentucky congressman John Yarmuth and New York congresswoman Louise Slaughter would also put a moratorium on MTR permits while the examination is underway.

The two submitted HR 526, or the Appalachian Community Health Emergency Act, for the second time. It was first introduced last summer, but was sent to committee where it died.

“Mountaintop removal coal mining destroys entire eco-systems and contaminates the water supplies in mining communities, making people sick and jeopardizing their safety,” Yarmuth said.

“This legislation will provide families in these communities the answers they need and the protection they deserve. If it can’t be proven that mountaintop removal mining is safe, we shouldn’t allow it to continue.”

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the two said, MTR operations have either polluted or buried about 2000 miles of Appalachian streams, which are primary water sources for neighboring communities.

“Evidence is mounting that people living in communities near mountaintop removal coal mining sites are at an elevated risk for a range of major health problems,” Yarmuth said.

“While there has long been anecdotal evidence to support this conclusion, recent peer-reviewed research has examined the question more systematically and revealed compelling results.”

The congressmen cited a peer-reviewed study in Environmental Research that said communities near mountaintop removal mining sites showed elevated levels of birth defects including circulatory and respiratory problems as well as central nervous system damage and muscoskeletal and gastrointestinal systems, versus non-MTR communities.

The two also said an analysis in the journal Science found that, in areas near MTR sites, “adult hospitalizations for chronic pulmonary disorders and hypertension are elevated as a function of county-level coal production, as are rates of mortality; lung cancer; and chronic heart, lung, and kidney disease. Health problems are for women and men, so effects are not simply a result of direct occupational exposure of predominantly male coal miners”

Slaughter, a native of Harlan County, Kentucky, called for any further mining of the type to halt until more of the effects could be understood.

“Given the growing field of evidence that people living near mountaintop removal coal mining sites are at an elevated risk for a range of major health problems, we should place a moratorium on further mountaintop coal removal activity until we can ensure the health and safety of families in these communities,” she said.

Yarmuth said the first comprehensive scientific report on MTR came out in 2010, more than 30 years after it became a legal practice.

He also cited Kentucky Office of Energy Policy data that said, in the state, the increase in mountaintop removal mining operations has coincided with a 60% drop in the total number of miners from 47,000 to approximately 18,000 in 36 years.