Mountain Legislation

After watching the documentary movie on coal mining which was called "The Last Mountain", I learned and gained more more knowledge about the negative aspects that happens when more coal mining projects are approved and started by major corporations like Massey. Furthermore, some regulations that I believe should be put into regulation or use are that there should be limitations to how many projects that a certain coal mining corporation could do in a certain amount of time or time period. For instance, Massey should be limited to at most 1 big coal mining project for a  6 to 8 month time period. Moreover, one more thing added to the legislation I proposed is that there should be at least a 50 mile distance between people's houses and the coal mining location so that the damages of the pollution to the people will less severe. More than ever, the pollution from coal mining are killing people and causing people to have cancers on a daily basis. Moreover, the health and environmental costs associated or related with mining, transporting and burning coal, as reported by a new Harvard Medical School study, are approximately $345 billion annually, which is equivalent to more than 17¢ per kilowatt hour. In addition, these costs are often viewed as “externalities” due to the fact that they are costs borne by the public which are not reflected in the price of coal-fired electricity. Above all, there are 600 coal-fired power plants across the United States, and over 600 ash ponds across the country, filled with 150 billion gallons of toxic sludge. Not to mention, each year emissions from coal-fired power plants causes more than 10 million asthma attacks, brain damage in up to 600,000 newborn children, and 43,000 premature deaths. Furthermore, the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) said it is unsafe to eat many freshwater fish due to mercury contamination in forty-eight states.