Your Opinion: Common sense or nonsense?

As an avid fisherman, I spend a lot of time on streams so Representative Luetkemeyer's Feb. 4 comments in the News Tribune caught my eye. He said, "We have a Congress and now a president committed to making commonsense changes to the regulatory regime." The Stream Protection Rule prohibits dumping mine waste into creeks and rivers. Why does Representative Luetkemeyer think it is commonsense to dump mine waste into our water? It is not healthy for fish or for us. Commonsense says it is better to protect steams rather than to have to drink bottled water like Flint residents. Will mining companies pay for stream clean up or will streams stay polluted?

Representative Luetkemeyer says dumping mine tailings into streams will allow coal to come back. He blames regulations for the loss of coal jobs. In fact, natural gas and wind are cheaper energy sources. It is also less expensive to build a new wind or solar power generation facility than a coal plant. Lower cost is why there are more US jobs in the solar industry than in oil, gas and coal extraction combined. Another reason for the switch to clean energy is that coal plant smoke causes thousands of premature deaths every year in our country. Worldwide, coal plants cause three million deaths a year. Coal is expensive and a health hazard, so why is it commonsense to dump mine waste into streams to try to bring back coal and increase air pollution?

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