Dear Members & Allies of the Citizens Coal Council,

Pat yourselves on the back, all of you who sent e-mails to Bruce Babbitt about Kathy Karpan's conflict of interest – today Babbitt removed her.

Today was a very hectic day at the Washington headquarters of the Department of Interior. Top officials scrambled madly trying to head off more critical media attention on the Karpan mess and to satisfy the White House’s growing concerns about bad publicity. Late this afternoon, Bruce Babbitt announced Karpan will no longer head the Office of Surface Mining (OSM) and Kay Henry will take over as Acting Director on Monday, April 10.

Karpan will become Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Lands and Minerals Management for non-mining issues such as grazing and oil and gas. (Inside sources told CCC that she will stay only 30 days "to save face" then leave government service. Pray it’s true so she doesn't have time to let drilling crews into the Arctic Wildlife Refuge or some other disaster.) Babbitt’s press release also said she recused herself from making decisions on "most" OSM issues and took vacation time "to consider an offer of employment from a non-government entity associated with the mining industry." (This is a complete spin of the facts we know -- last week’s story was she recused herself to go interview for the top job at the National Mining Association. Babbitt’s staff told her to take a vacation and let the fuss blow over.)

Kay Henry is now the head lawyer for OSM and was acting OSM Director from September 1996 until August 1997, when Karpan was appointed.

We can't kid ourselves, Karpan’s leaving and Henry’s arrival change nothing but the name and face; the disastrous policies and decisions stay. We now have a good opportunity to call attention to these.

Please contact the media and write letters to your local newspapers:

We urge groups to call your media contacts and send out press releases that demand that the Clinton-Gore Administration reverse these policies and decisions and make real, positive changes in the coal fields. It’s critical that citizens keep the heat on and hold President Clinton and Gore accountable. Some of these policies and decisions include:

* The Administration has filed notice that it will appeal the judge’s decision in the West Virginia mountaintop removal lawsuit and try to overturn it. Work is also underway to rewrite the Clean Water Act rules so coal companies can continue filling streams with millions of tons of mining waste. Karpan spearheaded these positions and also said she would rewrite to weaken the OSM rules that protect streams.

* Karpan has opposed any effort by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate utility companies that dump toxic coal waste from power plants into strip mine pits and lagoons, polluting the groundwater. Her opposition has stopped, hopefully only temporarily, EPA’s decision and allowed more time for the utilities and National Mining Association to try to cancel EPA’s efforts.

* In December, Karpan approved new rules that allow underground mines to collapse the land surface under cemeteries, national parks, wildlife refuges, historic sites and up to 1.8 million homes. She refused to do her legal duty to write protections for these areas; instead she adopted the same position of the National Mining Association: underground mines need to mine in these areas so they can make enough profit to stay in business.

* Since 1993 when the Clinton-Gore administration took over, OSM’s enforcement has nosedived 64 percent and half of the already understaffed inspector force was let go or moved to other, non-enforcement jobs as a budget-cutting move. Babbitt has refused to ask for more money to restore this program that is critical for protecting the environment and the public’s health, safety and property. Karpan publicly criticized OSM inspectors who had written violations and told industry and state officials she wouldn’t put up with vigorous enforcement on her watch.

* Uncontrolled blasting has damaged and destroyed thousands of homes and water supplies across the country and even killed members of the public. OSM has allowed the coal industry and state regulators to blast at will and ignore their legal duty to prevent any damage, injury and death.

If you would like help with contacting the media or writing a letter, please call or e-mail Jane in CCC's Washington office: 202-544-6210, citzcoal@essential.org

Karpan’s contacts and relations with mining industry officials over the past year must be revealed and reviewed to find out exactly what did happen. She appears to have taken industry’s position on many important policies and decisions and these have not been canceled with her leaving; they will continue to cause harm to coalfield citizens and their environment. Also, agency employees have told CCC since last July that she openly said she wanted to work for the National Mining Association. If so, we believe she should have stopped making decisions then, not nine months later. CCC will keep on asking for information about her contacts and we expect to join soon with other environmental groups in asking for a formal

investigation by the Justice Department.

We'll let you know as we learn more.