Broke, Sick and Stupid, Kentucky Bets its Last Dime on Coal

You've seen 'em. At the track, the casino, the lottery machine. The haggard face, the ragged clothes, the tattered singles clutched in a shaking hand. They know they're going to lose because they've always lost before, but they still can't help themselves.

And so Kentucky, facing another billion-dollar-plus deficit next year, ranking top of the nation in pollution, unhealthy citizens and the regressive feudalism of its tax system, places one last bet on the Magic Buggy Whip Industry.

While other states are investing in solar, wind, geothermal and biomass energy that will secure their economic future, Kentucky shakes off reality and insists that this time, Big Coal won't ass-rape it senseless and leave it bleeding on the floor.

From the Courier-Journal:

Sierra Club and Valley Watch have sued the Environmental Protection Agency in federal court in Washington, D.C., claiming that agency administrator Lisa Jackson should have already stopped three planned coal-power plants in Kentucky from getting their air-quality permits.

SNIP

The two environmental groups, in their lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleged that the “three new coal plants could receive approval any day now under a Kentucky regulatory program that fails to ensure that plants will not exceed health-based smog standards.”

They ask for Jackson to intervene in the state regulatory process.

Specifically, they argue that a Kentucky clean-air plan fails to recognize nitrogen oxides, or NOx, as a contributor to lung-irritating ground-level ozone.