The Tennessee State Capitol in downtown Nashville.NASHVILLE – Legislative sponsors of a ban on new “mountaintop” removal coal mining vow to return next year after their Tennessee Scenic Vistas Mountains Protection Act measure died in a Senate committee Wednesday.
Six Republicans on the Senate Energy, Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee refused to bring the bill up for discussion when Democratic Caucus Chairman Lowe Finney of Jackson came to present the measure.
Two of Finney’s fellow Democrats serve on the committee and could have moved and seconded the measure, forcing a hearing on the bill, which bans mining above 2,000 on ridges and mountains.
But Sens. Charlotte Burks of Monterey and Ophelia Ford of Memphis were nowhere in sight.
Finney later called the measure, which has failed in years past due to coal industry opposition, “a jobs bill that directly affects the tourism of this state, one of the biggest industries that we have if not the biggest industry.”