The coal industry proposes mining and transporting about 100 million tons of coal through the Pacific Northwest by train and barge, exporting and burning it in Asia and releasing EACH YEAR in the neighborhood of 175 million tons of CO2.
Even though the EPA estimates the Social Cost of this carbon pollution to be from $12 - $24 Billion per year, both the DEQ and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has refused to undertake the federal mandated environmental impact studies that are required under law and are moving ahead to issue permits without them.
- The federal NEPA Process required an environmental impact study.
- Executive Order 12866 requires it.
- President Obama declared: "The effort to slow climate change requires bold action."
President Obama: If not you, who? If not now, when?