Several hundred activists gathered in Pioneer Courthouse Square today to rally against exporting Montana and Wyoming coal from Northwest ports, an effort to signal the industry that it’s in for a no-holds-barred fight.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., chief prosecuting attorney for Hudson Riverkeeper and president of the Waterkeeper Alliance, took top billing. Based on his experience fighting coal mining in Appalachia, Kennedy told the crowd, coal would corrupt politicians, damage health and the environment and “turn government agencies into the sock puppets of the industries they’re supposed to regulate.”
Kennedy talked of his prior lawsuits against coal projects, and said afterward that the six potential proposals to export coal to Asia through ports in Oregon and Washington are illegal. “It’s illegal for them to do it without an environmental impact statement,” he said. “And the minute they release a true and proper EIS their proposals will be laughed out of town.”
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