EPA clears the way for mountain blasts

But in recent weeks, the administration has quietly made a decision to open the way for at least two dozen more mountaintop removals.

In a letter this month to a coal ally, Representative Nick J. Rahall II, Democrat of West Virginia, the Environmental Protection Agency said it would not block dozens of "surface mining" projects. The list included some of the most controversial mountaintop mines.

The industry said the practice of using explosives to blast away a peak is safer and more efficient than traditional shaft mining. But critics say the process scars the landscape and dumps tons of waste - some of it toxic - into streams and valleys.

The administration's decision is not the final word on the projects or the future of mountaintop removal as a whole. But the letter, coupled with the light it sheds on relations between the mining industry and the Obama White House, has disappointed environmentalists. Some say they feel betrayed by a president they thought would end or sharply limit the practice.

The issue is politically sensitive because environmentalists were an active force behind Obama's election, and because the president's standing among Democratic voters in coal states is tenuous.

Moreover, Obama needs support from local lawmakers for an energy agenda that would further regulate home-state industries - but halting mountaintop mining could eliminate jobs and put upward pressure on energy prices in a time of economic hardship.

Coal advocates have solicited help from officials as high as White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel. The White House is "searching for a way to walk this tightrope," said Phil Smith, a spokesman for the United Mine Workers of America. "They have a large constituency of people who want to see an immediate end to mountaintop removal and an equally large constituency . . . whose communities depend on those jobs."

Shortly after his inauguration, Obama won praise from the green lobby for taking a skeptical view of the mining process. And in March, the EPA announced that it would review the mountaintop projects - breaking from the Bush administration's practice of granting permits with little or no scrutiny.

The EPA has the authority to block mountaintop removal under the Clean Water Act. But if the agency raises no objections, the final decision on projects is made by the Army Corps of Engineers - which historically has approved mountaintop mining. The corps previously had indicated its intention to approve 48 pending permits.

Although environmentalists had expected the new administration to put the brakes on mountaintop removal, Rahall and mining advocates have pointed out that Obama did not promise to end the practice and was more open to it than his Republican opponent, Senator John McCain of Arizona.